Wednesday 2 April 2014

European Youth Parliament (EYP) / March'14


I always had these big problems with coming back from EYP sessions and having troubles with explaining to people what is EYP and why it’s such a great things for me and for so many other people. I re-read all the things I wrote about EYP in my old blog over the last year and found out that it was mainly about the mess of emotions, people, happiness, post-EYP-depression and applying for new events all over again. So today, just being back to Italy after two amazing EYP event in a row, I want to for once to do it properly. The structure I will follow is that of a debriefing scheme we are using there to clear up the mind; FFFF – facts; feelings; findings; future.

Facts: EYP, Riga IS, Klaipeda ESRS.
  • ·         The European Youth Parliament is a politically and religiously unbound non-profit organisation, which encourages European youth to actively engage in citizenship and cultural understanding. It involves around 40,000 youngsters from all around Europe in its events and has around 5,000 active members in the different countries. © Wikipedia
  • ·         Two officially used languages are English and French as the organization first appeared as a school project in France in 1988.
  • ·         Typical EYP event is an extended parliamentary simulation which consists of three main parts:
    Would strongly advise see this one in big size
    Teambuilding, Committee Work (each committee is assigned name and topic following the actual committees of European Parliament) and General Assembly. The length of the session may vary significantly depending on the type of the event – may it be a one-day school session, EYP Weekend, Regional Session, National Selection Conference or a flagship event of EYP – International Session (IS) which happens thrice a year and bringing together delegations all over Europe for 9 or more days.
  • ·         Main participants of the session are delegates organised into committees. Each committee is accompanied by a chairperson (or two), each chairperson is a part of a bigger officials team which also includes vice-presidents and a president of the session. Each session has its’ own team of organisers – most self-dedicated people in the world who are responsible for pretty much everything before and during the event. Session may also have (or not) a media team.
  • ·         I got into EYP absolutely accidently the last February by finding the application form for the regional session of EYP Belarus in Vilnius. Since then I’ve been on 7 events in 4 countries and 6 different cities, both as delegate, chairperson and journalist.
  • ·         Although not being selected the last year for the international session, I was chosen to participate in this year's IS in Riga in the middle of March. Was so happy that actually didn’t even think about how it will result into skipping a week of studies.
  • ·         Some of my best friends at the moment are those I’ve met in EYP on my first session. After I found out they are applying as chairpersons for another event – European Student Regional Session in Klaipeda in the end of March – I also wrote an application (was preparing for an exam at that moment, but who cares). After being selected there I at last have been hesitant for a while (as that was resulting already into two weeks in a row of skipped university), but as two of my friends got selected as well, gave it a try (dreading in advance the process of catching up the anatomy program).
  • ·         I spent 8 days in Riga as a part of a Committee on Culture and Education 1 (CULT 1). We had 2 days on teambuilding, 2 more – on Committee Work focused on the topic of discrimination in sports and had 2 days of General Assembly. We had 3 parties, 2 outside dinners, eurovillage and euroconcert (one of each), average temperature of minus 6, 1 chairperson from UK and enormous quantity of shared fun and inspiration.
  • ·         Klaipeda ESRS being consisted only of 3 days was nonetheless just as a huge event for me as Riga IS – but differently. It was a CULT committee again with an enormously controversial topic of cultural impact of immigration, me chairing together with 1 of the 2 vice-presidents, having 5 committees on the session, around 4 hours for teambuilding and sleeping on average around 4.5 hours per day.




Feelings.                                                                                     
  • ·         Riga IS

I had these absolutely controversial stages of appreciating my international session and being a delegate after more than 6 months break. I was absolutely overexcited at first – while packing and during the flight, after arrival, meeting my roomies, appreciating first of the many really tasty breakfasts (oh, food in Riga was just MUCH LOVE). I felt a bit lost and reflexive during the couple of the next days, having periods of depressive thoughts of going into nowhere. What helped me a lot were all these people around – all over the world, all over the opinions;  my night talks with my committee mates and our whats’up chatting; meeting random people on the way, sometimes letting them go and sometimes don’t. That was the moment when I realized – people around might be the best way to solve yourself. I just went to sleep that day and woke up being relieved, ready to work, feeling our committee as a team and full of the motivation to move. That stage was worth coming through the second, and that’s what EYP was for me at that moment and always is – it’s teaching the things about myself and the world around so out of a sudden and so right, that it’s breath catching.

EYP and its people, Riga and its nightlights.
It was hard and demanding; it was a committee work of a high academic quality; we were all getting ill one after the other after walking under the snow every single morning; General Assembly was somewhat frustrating and I even had a cup of coffee (first time in half of the year) to keep me awake on Friday. And it was marvelous – people around, Riga with its’ old town, having lunches together, dancing on coffee breaks, feeling along with so many others about that bright future somewhere ahead. I felt a great emptiness while leaving Riga – it was early in the morning after somewhat of 3 hours of sleep on Sunday, the city was empty, I was walking alone and having this feeling in my body – about how important it was. How bright, how cool, how complicated and how enormously great.


  • ·         Klaipeda ESRS

So I had a three days break before coming back to EYP as a chairperson. I packed my stuff, I took my brother, my friends, got into the train and five hours later took off in Klaipeda – Lithuanian city standing on the Baltic Sea.
I always had these tender feelings to seas as something eternally free and heart-breaking and inspiring. Was the session so great due to the sea? Was it about people? Was it the feeling of being a first chairperson for a lot of newcomers into EYP? I was terribly ill for two out of three days of the session, and being able to stand it all through the event was a great achievement and somehow an experience for me. I was ready to give up so many times when it was a song I was singing with delegates, a cup of tea from someone passing by, videos from our media team, my co- and soul-chairs, delegates asking questions about the future sessions, talks and laughs, - all the things and people which were bringing me back to life all over again. I was putting my health as a higher priority so often that it was an enormous relief for caring about something else even more.
We have seen the sea as well – after the event had ended the officials team took the bus and went to the beach and had a giant group hug as the sun went down, with the waves behind us sound like breathing. That’s the feeling from that feeling section – been a part of the whole, free, happy, inspired, daring and never giving up.



Findings.

It's here cause I miss CULT 1 and its people a lot. 
Panda as a symbol of discrimintaion on the streets of Riga
I cannot divide these two weeks into periods in this section. My findings are about the people – how controversial and different and beautiful they are. About myself – how I can learn a lot from the others and how the only limits there are I’m creating myself. About EYP and its academic sides I never thought that profoundly before. About how beautiful the sea is after the sunset. About pandas being a symbol of fight against discrimination. About how 8 people can fit into one car (somebody should have been filming.
About how expressing yourself is great and how sleep deprivation really doesn’t matter anymore.


Future.

More important, I found out a new way to feel about such events ending. I stormed back home like a hurricane today, hugged my flatmate, cleaned the room, got ready for tomorrow and wrote more than 1500 words for that post about how EYP is changing my life all over again.
I was seriously thinking about having a big gap in EYP, or, probably, even quieting it at all. I don’t think so anymore. What I think is that as long as this project will teach me such valuable things, bring me to such beautiful places and help me to meet all these people – I will be doing it.

On the closing ceremony of the Riga IS we were told a beautiful legend about the city – how every five years a voice from the river Daugava asks if Riga is ready. The answer should always be no – otherwise the Daugava will rise and drawn the city. Believe me, I’ve seen this river – it’s quite possible.
That was the best way to describe this project and our involvement in it I could imagine. EYP is never ready – and, probably, it’s where our strength is.

Daugava might be ready from the look of it, but we are not.
It's already around 1700 words and I still don’t feel like it’s ready, however, at least, it follows some structure now. And emotions – well, they are so much and such, that don’t need to be explained over and over again.
Such EYP, much love.
With lots of love,
Natali

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