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EYES - Who we are

We provide a space and a process to encourage self-

reliant action by and for young people

We are a network of young European citizens pursuing self-empowerment in order to become actors in the decion making space of our continent and the world.

We are an open and permanent network by and for young citizens in Europe organizing by ourselves the training and support needed to

achieve our goals

We are creating a process which gives us the opportunity to share experience, ideas and propositions for action

We are a network connected to many

other organizations all around the world

EYES - Who we are

A short history

2008270 youngsters from around Europe

met for 8 days in 3 cities of France

and worked out 25 recommendations

which were presented in Paris during

the French presidency of the E.U.

See it here: http://bit.ly/yFTla1

2009

Feb2011

4 youngsters participated at the

World Social Forum in Dakar

(Senegal) where they spoke on

part of YPSSI at the Convergence

Assembly, an opportunity to make an

official presentation and network with

organizations from around the world

May2011

We built up the YPSSI Youth core,

called from then on EYES, in

Athens (Greece). We adopt our

5 Es: Empowerment, Education,

Environment, Employment, and

European identity. We also discussed

with scientists about sustainability

and the role of technology in meeting

this conceptWe developed our 2-year roadmap at

the EYES Summer Camp in Le Marais

(France), where we also ran our 1st

street action on the topic of recycling

and consumption Nov2011

We plan our actions, events and

campaigns for the next 2 years at

the EYES Winter Camp in Ploiesti

(Romania). We run another street

action about consumption during

Christmas holidays

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We created the European wide

network: Young People in Science and

Society Issues (YPSSI) in Le Cheylard

(France). At this 1st summer camp,

we encouraged active EU citizenship

and decided to promote sustainable

development and critical thinking

Aug2011

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YOUth in Transition

The EYES campaign “YOUth in Transition” starts from three hypotheses:

The social and ecological transition of European societies is already underway, but needs a change of scale.

This change of scale will only happen through a strong involvement and participation of citizens, and particularly youth.

What lies ahead is no longer to imagine possible futures, but to extend and promote the alternatives that are already there, that is, local participatory citizen-driven alternatives.

From this, the EYES campaign aims at:

- setting up, in Europe, local spaces of empowerment of young citizens over matters of social and ecological transition, spaces of information and sensibilization, of collective debate, expression and action, starting now!

- connecting these spaces so as to create, at an European level, a collective voice on citizen-driven alternatives

- working with other networks and organizations in order to elaborate these targets and define a collective expression

- presenting this voice at the People’s Summit for Social and Ecological Justice that will be held in parallel to the UN Rio+20 Summit at end of June 2012, in Rio de Janeiro

- presenting this collective voice, in the form of a European Youth Declaration of Alternatives, to the European Commission by Fall 2013

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Mar2012

June2012

Aug2012

Fall2013

Our 2-year Roadmap

Alternative World

Water Forum,

Marseille, France

RIO+20,

Rio de Janeiro,

Brazil

European Youth Forum

of Alternatives (EYFA),

France

Summer Camp in Le

Marais, France

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EYFA

We come together to find real, alternative solutions in order to build a democratic Europe which is participatory, integrating and non-exclusive, also towards its neighbours. We demand sustainability to be the core principle of all European action. We also call for the expansion of forms of participatory democracy in Europe. A stronger involvement of youth and civil society in decision-making processes is a fundamental precondition to take on successfully the social and ecological challenges at stake.

Together we want to become aware of the challenges we, the European Youth, face in different countries, discuss them and make them known to the European public through a European Youth Declaration of Alternatives.

The European Youth Forum of Alternatives is an EYES initiative and a direct invitation to you and your organization to take an active role in deciding the future of Europe. Our aim is to bring more than 5000 young people together in a space of interaction and horizontal decision making in the Fall of 2013 near Toulouse, France.

We, as European Youth, want to create a Europe which includes us into the political processes and addresses the questions we find important for our lifes and our planet. We are concerned about the ecologic, social, economic and political reality we face in our daily lifes.

The forum will provide a platform for discussion for young Europeans and friends from other continents to empower youth and build a new Europe which addresses the multiple crises putting at risk our future. These affect us and are not being solved.

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EYES @ FAME

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While the World Water Forum (WWF) states as its priority that the Right to Water – everywhere on the planet, for all and everyone - must be guaranteed and implemented, this is not necessarily true in their practices. For this FAME (Alternative World Water Forum) is aspiring to build a space about activism and solidarity – a meeting place for all who fight for water and share experiences and alternatives, therefore entailing an opportunity for us to discuss the power of water and its distribution, which is often concentrated in very few hands, the future of water companies and also of the various forms of global citizenship for water management.

EYES took the stand to participate at the FAME due to our strong position on the right to water as a common good. We support the charter of the International Water Messenger Campaign, which states:

Water is not a merchandise; it is a common good shared by humanity and all life forms;

Access to drinking water and adequate sanitation is a fundamental human right;

It is our individual and collective obligation to ensure that our use and management of water is respectful of the environment and of future generations.

In our camp in Marseille, we will organize the following activities around the FAME:

a videoconference from Marseille to Rio de Janeiro on involvement of youth movements in water issues, on 8th of March 2012;

visits to the WWF and FAME & participation at the Forum des Jeunes (Youth Forum)

a street action about the Right to Water on the 10th of March

training sessions on networking, organisational, as well as group-decision making skills;

workshops on the EYFA

presentation of our campaign YOUth in Transition

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EYES @ RIO+20

Since 1972, the UN Earth Summits take place every 10 years. The most important took place in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, in the presence of over a hundred state leaders and 1500 NGOs. It defined for the first time the fundamental guidelines for a sustainable and fair management of our planet. Twenty years later, Rio hosts again the Earth Summit in June.

What can be really expected after the disappointing summits of Copenhague, Cancun and Durban? Unquestionably, the active participation of citizens and social movements is needed as never before, in order to remind international leaders the urgency of making ambitious decisions that can cope with the environmental and social challenges at stake.

We, EYES, think that we need 100 Rios in Europe! In fact, Rio+20 will trigger a large mobilization

of international civil society of the People’s Summit for Social and Ecological Justice. It will be reflected back on local levels all around the world: these open spaces of debate and hope are opportunities for local and regional organizations to build political links between them and to increase the impact of their actions.

Based on this, EYES will:

be physically present at the People’s Summit and give input from our perspective as European youth;

set up a delegation of minimum 10 European EYES members to come to Rio de Janeiro for one week during June 2012 in order to assist at the People’s Summit and the UN Summit;

propose to act as an interface to reflect the People’s Summit and the UN Summit back to Europe via the EYES network.

If you want to get in touch with ussend an e-mail to contact@eyesnetwork.org

To follow our activities, find us on www.eyesnetwork.org

If you like us, do it on Facebook tooEYES - Empowering Youth in a European Society

For current updates, follow us on Twitter@EYESNetwork

Links to the activities we are attending:

Rio+20 & People’s Summitwww.rio2012.org.br

www.rio20.netwww.uncsd2012.org

World Water Forum and FAMEwww.fame2012.org

www.worldwaterforum6.org