Five teachers, who use the Serbian edition of the Europa Diary in their classrooms and who were the lucky winners of a prize draw, were invited for a free, five-day visit to Belgium. Highlights of the trip included a tour of the European Parliament, an excursion to the medieval city of Bruges and lunch with the Second Secretary of the Serbian Mission to the EU. Generation Europe Foundation, in partnership with Bovan Consulting, produced a Serbian language diary for the 2010-2011 school year which was financed by European Union Delegation in Belgrade.
We gathered our National Partners and the European Commission services (as well as the European Economic & Social Committee) which participate in the Europa Diary project to reflect on our experiences over the past year. All the participants were invited to our office in the evening for a Bach concert by the music ensemble Sirocco and a networking dinner in our secret garden.
Generation Europe Foundation and the FutureWork Forum were invited to present the findings of the Employing the NEXT Generation research at the 'Mobility and Flexibility in Future Europe' conference in Györ. Our GEF Ambassador in Hungary, Judit Boros, talked about the future of youth employment at the conference, which mainly dealt with mobility of Hungarian workers and its impact on labour markets in Austria and Hungary as well as the challenges European employers face in attracting skilled labour.
Generation Europe Foundation attended The Future of Sustainable Lifestyles and Entrepreneurship conference, where we contributed to the workshop on fostering sustainable entrepreneurship. We also brought together youth representatives in the final plenary session to discuss what they took away from the conference. This event marked the launch of the SPREAD Sustainable Lifestyles 2050 Project.
Our mission is to empower young people to find the sustainable entrepreneurs within themselves – to become change makers in their communities and in the world. Generation Europe Foundation’s Forum on Green Entrepreneurship (GreEn Forum) is bringing together young people to spark the mindshift necessary to start building a sustainable future today.
Generation Europe Foundation is proud to announce that the winners of the "Employing the NEXT Generation" essay competition have been invited to present their own ideas for solving youth (un)employment in Europe and getting the next generation into sustainable, meaningful work during a focus group at Employment Week 2010.
Generation Europe Foundation gave the closing remarks for the 2010 Food Monitoring Workshop organised by the European Advertising Standards Alliance (EASA) and the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA). GEF acted as the independent reviewer of the food and beverage industries’ compliance with self-regulation of online advertising.
Generation Europe Foundation organised the annual meeting of our National Partners and collaborators in the European Commission to discuss experiences from producing the forthcoming 2010-2011 Europa Diary and future developments in the project.
The aim of the conference is to look at how the EU education system can further encourage an entrepreneurial spirit in young people. By holding this debate the conference aims to get a better insight into entrepreneurship education: how it is taught, whether it can be taught, whether it is effective, how it can be improved and whether it has a place within educational curricula.
The winning design adopted for the cover of the 2010-2011 edition of the new European school diary was produced by 17-year-old Lientje Leflot from Lier, whose special subjects at the Francesco-Paviljoen Secondary School in Herentals are advertising and illustration. The winner of the competition receives a prize of €1,000. After three rounds of voting the jury chose the design by the schoolgirl from Lier out of more than 1,300 entries. Lientje Leflot came up with a visually appealing motif comprising 40 pictograms separated by the text "You are here".
Catie Thorburn, President of Generation Europe Foundation, was invited to share her views on "Imagining the world after the crisis" for the VI meeting of the International Community of Experts of the Noviasalcedo Foundation, in Bilbao on 10 December 2009.
Do businesses have a role to play in education? L'entreprise a-t-elle une place dans la mission d'éducation? A quelle coopération l'éducation peut-elle inviter l'entreprise?
Generation Europe Foundation was one of the three reviewers of the Alcohol Online Advertising Monitoring Report produced by EASA, the European Advertising Standards Alliance.
Generation Europe Foundation was one of the key youth representations at the European Commission's 'Be healthy, be yourself' conference on 9-10 July. Not only did we conduct a survey amongst young people in preparation of this event, but also did we take an active part in the debates! The winner of our health survey, Alexandru Goia (23), won a one-week trip to Brussels and received a present from Ms. Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Health.
On 24-25 June 2009, the GEF team and its friends took an active part in the Employment Week debates, taking minutes and briefing keynote speakers, showcasing how to run pan-European research survyes among young people, etc. Once again, we had an interesting encounter with European Commissionner Vladimir Špidla!
On 9 December 2008, Generation Europe Foundation took part in the debates following the presentation of the 2008 Alcohol Monitoring Compliance Report, of which it was a reviewer and which was produced by EASA, the European Advertising Standards Alliance.
GEF was accompanied by one of its GE Ambassador. Judit Boros, GE Ambassador in Hungary, took an active part in the debates and brought a young fresh look to alcohol ads.
On 27 September, GEF took an active part in Job Day Europe in the European Commission in Brussels, which attracted thousands of young people. GEF together with some of its community members joined the debate with European Commissionner for Employmnet Vladimir Špidla!
The Survey Report was released by GEF during Employment Week 2008, as a key representative of students and young professionals in Europe. The results provided food for thought for the youth and employment debate. Many participants later shared with us their astonishment at some of the results, such as the fact that the young generation is not as mobile as is generally believed.
An ambassadors' meeting was organised in Brussels to define the role of the ambassadors' in view of the aims and objectives of Generation Europe Foundation. The national ambassadors were invited to present their ideas and strategies for their country. New goals were set for 2008 and everybody participated in the brainstorming for the implementation of the goals.
In 2007 the European Union existed for 50 years. For the occasion the Financial Times invited stakeholders and policy makers from across Europe to communicate their vision of the next fifty years of European Union. Besides writers from the worlds of politics, academia, business and the arts offering ideas and proposals for the Union’s next half-century, GEF was also invited to contribute thus providing the publication with a range of views and suggestions from young Europeans.
During an exhilarating couple of days, the candidates selected for the workshops were asked to make a presentation around the ideas they expressed in their winning essays. There were some fabulous, creative and visionary ideas. In addition, creative and playful workshops allowed for new approaches to the use of technology to develop.
All the national ambassadors were invited to London to discuss the aims and objectives of Generation Europe Foundation. The national ambassadors were invited to present their ideas and strategies for their country. Furthermore, ambassadors were invited to contemplate the "The Future of Technology in the Workspace", in preparation of the workshops in December.
The Second Generation Europe Foundation Youth Summit focussed on corporate social responsibility (CSR). The President of the European Parliament was invited to have his say on the subject. During the Summit, delegates debated hard and came up with with six questions on CSR which they wanted to put to the CEOs of the world's leading companies.
The first Shaping the Future Summit focused on The Workplace of the Future and addressed issues such as the future of European employment, talent supply and demand, entrepreneurship & lifelong learning. Each of these topics was discussed in a Working Group, with the support of a Background Paper and the results of the "Workplace of the Future" Interactive Dialogue.
