„Learning to live in MY Y/OURrope”

European Coordination of International Young Catholic Students – International Movement of Catholic Students (JECI-MIEC)

18-25 of July 2010, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

We, 40 students from 11 countries[1], met in Cluj-Napoca, Romania for the Summerweek 2010 with the theme „Learning to live in MY/OURrope”, organised by JECI-MIEC European Coordination and hosted by ASTRU Cluj, Romania.

The main aim of the meeting was to raise awareness and to promote intercultural dialogue among students through integral education.

Acknowledging the upcoming International Year of Youth with the theme of „Dialogue and Mutual Understanding” that will start on 12 August 2010 until 11 August 2011:

• We learned the importance of tolerance, respect and brotherhood/sisterhood regarding cultural diversity in order to respond to racism, intolerance, discrimination and other Human Rights violations.
• We figured out what it means to be a young person in Europe today.  We are people with various origins, traditions, cultures and beliefs.  We are different, unique and a colourful composition of textures.  Together we create a beautiful coloured glass window of who we are.  This plurality is what characterises us as a sign of unity, cohabitation and a living dialogue. 
• We are aware that there is still a lot of work to be done to reach the Europe we hope for. Today in our continent xenophobia, intolerance, sexism, apathy, prejudice, stubbornness and other phobias still exist.  We, as young people, are working to overcome this.

The Europe we strive for is not only based on economical interest, consumerism and individualism, but on humanity, freedom, liberty, the dignity of people and genuine interest for each other. 

We alone cannot achieve this Europe we hope for.  In order to build MY Y/OURope, we therefore:

• Call upon all people of good-will to be courageous in our common struggle and hard work for justice. Because it’s worthy.
• We challenge our fellow youth in Europe not to be passive actors but to be part of the solution with an open mind.
• We acknowledge the potential of dialogue as a process for respectful understanding (and reconciliation); we therefore request the Church to establish and promote dialogue but not only at the clerical level, but also by the everyday faithful.
• We call upon people of faith and no faith, not to be judgmental, but to be patient listeners and to stand up for what they believe in.
• We call upon governments in Europe to put their trust in young people by investing in our efforts and potential to create a new Europe, based on liberty and solidarity.
• We call upon all forms of media to be fair, balanced, objective and less sensational.

    Above all, we commit ourselves to honestly live out the values and virtues using the practical tools of inter-cultural dialogue so that we will not act based on misconceptions, prejudices and stereotypes.

    With our methodology of See-Judge-Act (Review of Life) we are not naïve to say that we are already perfect but we have the strong desire and willingness to change and follow what we believe in as Christian students in Europe.

[1]  The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, France, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Ukraine

We have a pleasure to invite you to the Summerweek “Learning to live in MY Y/OURope”, which is taking place from 18th till 25th July 2010 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

The Summerweek is designed for members of the movements. This means that participants in the meeting should be actively involved in projects at national/local level or to be members of the national/local board of the movement.

In order to apply for this activity, you have to fill-in the application form (you can find it together with this document or download from our website at www.jeci-miec.eu or attached to this e-mail) and sent it by e-mail office@jeci-miec.eu. The deadline for receiving the applications is the 10th June 2010. In any case we already now are asking you to reserve the travel tickets and to buy then ONLY as your participation will be confirmed.

After receiving the applications we will inform your movement of the participants confirmed and we will send them the “Participants File”.

Please find attached the draft timetable of the meeting.

The training Team will be composed by: Mihai Floran (European Coordinator), Anne-Marie Werner (ET), Chris Malano (IMCS-Pax Romana) and Fani Freri (EKNE Greece).

Please remember that in any case financial matters should not be a reason for non-participation. Please let us know if any problem and we will find common solution.

For any further information, please contact the European Secretariat by phone or by e-mail: office@jeci-miec.eu

We hope to have a lot of participants – especially from movements that are not so often present in the activities.

Attached files:

+ Summerweek2010-CallforParticipants – Extended
+ Summerweek2010-ParticipantForm – Extended
+ Summerweek2010-Timetable 

It is our great pleasure to invite you all, the National Movements for the Summerweek 2010 “Learning to live in MY Y/OURope”, which is taking place from 18th till 25th July 2010 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Due to short applications in the first deadline, we extend this for a second term.

The deadline to send application form is 15th May 2010. The application form, filled in by the candidate, should be send only by e-mail to office@jeci-miec.eu. Any application send by other means will not be taken into consideration.

After the selection of animators, it will be a common task of the Animators team which we expect to be composed of 4 persons (2 from the European Team and 2 from the National Movements) to develop the subject of the activity further, to find ideas to involve the local reality in this regard and to design the concrete program and timetable.

We would like to inform you as well that the Preparatory meeting will be most likely held in the venue in Cluj-Napoca, Romania in June 2010.

Please find attached the call for animators, the animator file and the Application Forms for the candidates.

I hope that it will not take long for you to find a candidate among your members. I would like to stress once more that it is a good opportunity to work in a multicultural team and to gain the experience for your future.

Attached files:

+ Summerweek2010-AnimatorsCall-Extended deadline
+ Summerweek2010-AnimatorsFile
+ Summerweek2010-AnimatorsPartcipationForm-Extendeddeadline

It is our great pleasure to invite you all, the National Movements for the Summerweek 2010 “Learning to live in MY Y/OURope”, which is taking place from 18th till 25th July 2010 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

The deadline to send application form is 1st May 2010. The application form, filled in by the candidate, should be send only by e-mail to office@jeci-miec.eu. Any application send by other means will not be taken into consideration.

After the selection of animators, it will be a common task of the Animators team which we expect to be composed of 4 persons (2 from the European Team and 2 from the National Movements) to develop the subject of the activity further, to find ideas to involve the local reality in this regard and to design the concrete program and timetable.

We would like to inform you as well that the Preparatory meeting will be most likely held in the venue in Cluj-Napoca, Romania in May or June 2010.

Please find attached the call for animators, the animator file and the Application Forms for the candidates.

I hope that it will not take long for you to find a candidate among your members. I would like to stress once more that it is a good opportunity to work in a multicultural team and to gain the experience for your future.

Attached files:

+ Summerweek2010-AnimatorsCall
+ Summerweek2010-AnimatorsFile
+ Summerweek2010-AnimatorsPartcipationForm

We have a pleasure to invite you to the Summerweek “Learning to live in MY Y/OURope”, which is taking place from 18th till 25th July 2010 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

The Summerweek is designed for members of the movements. This means that participants in the meeting should be actively involved in projects at national/local level or to be members of the national/local board of the movement.

In order to apply for this activity, you have to fill-in the application form (you can find it together with this document or download from our website at www.jeci-miec.eu or attached to this e-mail) and sent it by e-mail office@jeci-miec.eu. The deadline for receiving the applications is the 1st June 2010. In any case we already now are asking you to reserve the travel tickets and to buy then ONLY as your participation will be confirmed.

After receiving the applications we will inform your movement of the participants confirmed and we will send them the “Participants File”.

A draft timetable will be provided in the following month.

For any further information, please contact the European Secretariat by phone or by e-mail: office@jeci-miec.eu

We hope to have a lot of participants – especially from movements that are not so often present in the activities.

Attached files:

+ Summerweek2010-CallforParticipants
+ Summerweek2010-ParticipantForm

IYCS-IMCS (JECI-MIEC) European Congress
23.-26.09.2009, Bonn

Summary Reflections

During our European Congress, where IYCS (International Young Catholic Students) and IMCS (International Movement of Catholic Students) national movement leaders gathered, the study session focused on the exchange of experiences with the Bologna Process in our home countries. Its impacts on students’ lives and desirable improvements were also part of the discussion. The main points can be summarized as followed:

Facilitated exchange and greater comparability of university systems across Europe, which was one of the principle objectives for the Bologna reforms, has been not achieved. Neither could we observe any increase in the quality of higher education due to the reforms, in the contrary. We strongly support quality improvements, e.g. supply of material, teaching methods and more personnel. Especially, where there is an increase in fees, this should lead to an important improvement of the quality of the teaching, which is often not the case. Ideally, education should be freely accessible for everyone, which is not possible under current systems because of financial barriers.

Currently, we identified the problem that not all young people who would have the ability to successfully complete their studies, have the opportunity to do so because they cannot afford high fees additionally to costs of living. Financing of Master and Doctoral programs by the private sector should not be completely rejected. However, only certain fields, such as natural science, will potentially benefit from those funds. Therefore, governments have to assure that higher education does not depend on interests of the private sector and invest in fields that lack behind concerning finances, particularly human science, languages and arts.

The Bologna reforms mostly increased the degree of specialization. Specialization may be an option for students, but should not be the only one. To create employable people for the labor market as fast as possible, cannot be the objective of higher education. Instead education should be human centered and also lead to individual development of personality. We draw that opinion from our Christian perspective of estimation of every single human being – independent from his/her employability in the labor market, as education is not only the key to employability, but also to responsible citizenship.

The Bachelor degree is still not broadly recognized as a complete studies degree; at the same time there are by far not enough places in Master programs for all graduated students, which puts an enormous amount of pressure on students. So finding time for a job to finance studies, for extra-curricula activities and social engagement, has become harder because of the restructuring of the higher educational system. We clearly criticize these changes and strongly emphasize the importance of non-formal education for personal development. Possible solutions might be to give ECTS for extra-curricula activities, participation in students’ representation, working in social/civil institutions and the like, or to encourage the complete curriculum vitae as selective criterion rather than mere grades.

In short, we reject employability as principle objective for higher education and cannot find enough room in the Bologna reforms for individual free choices, informal education and development of personality.

What we want to change:

• more diversification and flexibility for the students
• possibility to have a diploma after 4 years
• part of the course : compulsory / other part: open choice of subjects
•  not increase university fees and increase the quality of the teaching given

What can we do?

• on local level, we have to know ourselves how Bologna is implemented
• then communicate this information to our peer groups / members
• do study sessions on our local levels with students, university officials and politicians
• student-coordination is important –> participate in student-councils at the university
• use existing networks !!!, institutions and tools
• national campaign for the student-level
• inform the public
• have a structure / commission to work with COMECE
• lobby also on EU-Commission & Parliament with COMECE together -> how?
• have officially responsible people!
• provide continuity in activities and actions concerning the Bologna Process
• focus on work on national level

Material prepared by Kathrin Russner (KSJ Germany)

The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ. John answered them all, I baptise you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. When all the people were being baptised, Jesus was baptised too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased. (Lc 3,15-16.21-22)

„A voice of one calling: In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.” (Is 40, 3) John is the leant between the Old Testament and the New Testament. He came for the people of Israel to take them to the good path, the path of the Lord and to bring them to Christ. Was he accepted? Was he praised? No! Which prophet is accepted in his own country? None! His payout was the death, which he accepted to make God’s will.

Let’s observe a little bit what is happening during the Baptism of Jesus. We’ll use the Gospel according to Matthew for better understanding and observation: “Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented. As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (3, 13-17)

In different occasions John denied himself as being the Saviour, by his humble nature, he recognises that he is just an instrument of God, and the expected Saviour is coming. At the point of the Baptism we sees and recognises the Christ, he tries to deter Jesus, can’t accept that Jesus can be baptised by his humble hands. John can’t accept that Jesus needs this Baptism.

In the same time, let’s look a little bit at ourselves: are we a little bit similar to John or not? Do we see the Glory of God? Do we see ourselves as instruments of God? Sadly, most of us, the people, today will we taken by the pride of Baptising the Lord, we can recognise Him, but we are missing that humility of John, that special gift from the Lord that makes us not worthy to untie the thongs of sandals.

In the end, we have to change our lives. It is rather difficult than painful process, but we shall have no fear and thus, we’ll manage. In the work that we are doing as Youth workers in a Catholic movement we have to see that – as John – we are instruments of God, we are elected/nominated to evangelise and make God known to students. We are very similar to John, we are preparing paths. That’s why most of the times the fruits of our work can’t be seen by ourselves, we are just seeding and the farmer will be somebody else, maybe even God himself. Being instruments of God we need that humility which is a difficult gift to receive. The humility to accept others, the humility to accept ideas, the humility to accept that we are not the only ones that are right, the humility to pray for the others, all the humility possible to receive from God.

Well, it is true that this is a difficult exercise, and maybe an exercise that we have to exercise for the whole life, but we have to try and to pray to receive this great gift saying: “God, make me humble”.

May God bless us by the intercession of St. John the Baptise, of the Most Holy Ever Virgin Mary, Mother of God, of all the Saints and all the Angels, deliver us the humility and make us good instruments.

JECI-MIEC European Coordination announces that during 18-25 July 2010 will organise in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, the Summerweek 2010 with the theme “Learning to live in My Y/OURope”.

Further information will be available next year.

The European Team met in Paris in 23 November 2009. At the meeting took part Mihai Floran (European Coordinator), Loucille Alcala, Mehul Dabhi and the newly elected Anne-Marie Werner.

The meeting had its purpose to be a transmission of memory for the new elected movement, AKH Germany which nominated Anne-Marie Werner and also to discuss the project that are going to be run during the next year. For the next year Anne-Marie Werner will take the position of Financial Manager in the European Team. The next meeting is scheduled to take place online in 21 December 2009.