Kaleidoscope 3

F I R S T E U R O A F R I C A N Y O U T H P A R L I A M E N TB E R L I N 2 0 1 4

KaleidoscopeKaleidoscopeI S S U E 3

ED

ITO

RIA

LDear EAYP participants,

When visiting Berlin one can not fail to notice the remaining marks of one

of the biggest clashes of Western society. Berlin is the place where the East

and the West got separated, both idealistically and physically. However,

brutality and political conflicts where overcome and only 25 years ago the

city became a peaceful symbol for reunification.

Today, impressive colourful artworks cover large parts of the Berlin Wall.

Paintings seem to have slowly covered the deep wounds that had have

gradually started to heal.

One can hardly find a better location to host the first Euro African Youth

Parliament than Berlin.

We, the youth from two continents, unite here and continue to foster this

inter-continental cooperation. Our work here will be bridging between the

youth of Africa and Europe adding a new dimension to the European slogan

of being united in diversity.

Your editors,

Oona, Harm & Sebastian

E D I T O R S

Oona Kiiskinen (Finland)Harm van Leeuwen (Netherlands)

V I D E O E D I T O R

Sebastian Hojas (Austria)

J O U R N A L I S T S

Beatrice Adu (Ghana)Zephyr Brüggen (Netherlands)Valerie Donschachner (Austria)

John Essilfie Jnr (Ghana)Emiljo Jazxhi (Albania)Thomas Pappoe (Ghana)

Lewin Schmitt (Germany)Portia Solomon (Ghana)

K a l e i d o s c o p e

2 F i r s t E u r o A f r i c a n Y o u t h P a r l i a m e n t

C O N T E N T SCommittee updates 4–5

Why democracy? 6–7

Journalists take on the topics 8–9

Home sweet home / I forgot to bring my… 10–11

A fruitful cooperation: Youth Bridge & EYP 14–16

Odd EAYP moments 18

Exchange issues 19

In issue 2 of Kaleidoscope, we misquoted Ololade Opadore (AFET) from Nigeria talking about the upcoming elections in her country. Sorry. The popular party for now are the People’s Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress. Ololade tells us that she finds herself in a maze of candidates and that there is no clarity within the opposition.

C O R R E C T I O N

I s s u e 3

2 F i r s t E u r o A f r i c a n Y o u t h P a r l i a m e n t B e r l i n 2 0 1 4 3

A F C O

A F E T

D R O I

————Monday, 9.30 am ——————————

Introductory clauses. Members of ENVI begin working on the clauses of the committee.

————10.30 am ————————————————

Members say lots of arable lands in Africa have been sacrificed for settlement. Also, there pollution in Africa is caused by cheap produc-tion processes.

————11.18 am ————————————————

Lack of technology is leading to deforestation in some African coun-tries.

————5.30 pm—————————————————

Environmental degradation is bad.

————Sunday, 9.40 am ———————————

Good morning and head first into discussing the pros and cons of a permanent UN army.

————10.15 am ————————————————

“What do we actually want from permanent members?”

————10.25 am ————————————————

“We are here to ensure peace for everybody!”

————3.56 pm—————————————————

“Western European and… others group”

Five members of AFCO butt-spelling “SORRY” to make up for being late.

————Monday, 10.04 am ——————————

Back to the permanent UN army.

————11.06 am ————————————————

“Fully something that the lack of...”

————11.32 am ————————————————

“Well, we still need something to debate, right?”

————12.09 pm ————————————————

“Could anybody kill that fly please?” – “Not with a chair!”

————12.11 pm ————————————————

“Tayfun, can you fly?”

————Sunday, 4.32 pm ———————————

People tore down Berlin wall, but our wall of knowledge is standing tall!

————5.39 pm—————————————————

#sohumanrights #muchsolution #verydiscussion

————Monday, 9.13 am ——————————

Photo shoot by the lake. Well de-served sunbathing moment after a productive day of committee work.

————9.45 am ————————————————

If you don’t jump, you’ll never FLY #arifeliciarifelicia #bestchairs

————12.21 pm ————————————————

Miley Cyrus might be uncondi-tional, but our contracts with the Chinese ain’t.

————Sunday, 10.14 am ——————————

“In Africa, there are blocks of neigh-bour countries between which one should be able to move freely. How-ever, when you cross the border, you have to pay the border officials. So it is organized corruption. How can we create a common African border policy to solve these kinds of problems?”

————12.03 pm ————————————————

“The problem is of an institutional and legislative nature as well. There are not enough Euro-African organ-isations to discuss the issues they share in common. And there is a problem with the implementation because the African Union’s deci-sions are not binding for its Mem-ber States.”

————Monday, 2.30 pm ——————————

“With this resolution we want to encourage people to go back home, where we will hopefully create prosperity as well. In this way they do not need to migrate, which does not make the immigrants happy either. They can stay at home.”

————3.51 pm—————————————————

“We need to reform Fro, the Eu-ropeans common external border policy. It could also impose punish-ments on governments that shoot little boats with immigrants cross-ing the Mediterranean Sea.”

————6.59 pm—————————————————

“We think it is a stable resolution. We need to clarify some things and then we are ready for GA. See you there! We’re gonna rock this! And you’d better watch out! Ubuntu!”

E N V I

Committee updates K a l e i d o s c o p e


A G R I

C U L T

————Monday, 9.30 am ——————————

We made our plan for the day. It is now time to implement it by going through the definitions of key words in our topic.

————10:10 am ————————————————

Discussing the possible involvement of different types of companies in common CSR programmes. Is it possible for such a framework to be implemented globally?

————12:30 am ————————————————

An amazing round of debates about the legal aspect of CSR initiatives just revealed numerous different opinions. A clash of perspectives.

————3.27 pm—————————————————

The committee has entered the finding solutions’ phase. Linking problems to respective solution(s).

————4.43 pm—————————————————

The involvement of the state in en-couraging CSR programmes is open to further arguments.

————Sunday, 10.00 am ——————————

The day began by delegates phras-ing their clauses to form a reso-lution. Megan: Guys who knows about the Cap programme? Dele-gates: No response Megan: “It is the Common Agricultural Policy in Europe”Adlum: “Oh, I knew about that”

————10.30 am ————————————————

Discussions focus on corrupt practices in Agriculture and trade union’s influence in both conti-nents. Grace: “Trade unions don’t have enough power”. Caroline: “I believe trade union must have a lot of influence regarding agricultural policies to benefit farmers”.

————11.00 am ————————————————

Zuzanna: “Can we please do one more energizer?” Edna: “Yes, I am a bit dull”

————11.20 am ————————————————

Committee members play ‘practical six’, a game from Ghana

————Monday, 11.00 am ——————————

Committee members complete the resolution.

————Monday, 9.20 am ——————————

CULT joined the whole team to the lakeside for a group photo shoot, some took the time to take some selfies as well as practise free pos-ing

————9.34 am ————————————————

I can see Oksana boiling within as she searches around to find the rest of the team members

————9.38 am ————————————————

Sebastian came up to ask if we are ready for the video shoot and Oksana replied that no, which was disappointing as the view at the lakeside would had been perfect for our video shoot

————9.43 am ————————————————

Oksana made the rest who didn’t show up to apologise by butt spell-ing ‘sorry’. We laughed so hard that it helped to calm her down.

————2.00 pm—————————————————

The session president James Benge joined us for a discussion. He asked questions relating to our resolution, like what if the campaign on com-puter literacy will go viral, and we all answered yes.

I T R E I I

Committee updates

I T R E I

————Sunday, 9.15 am ———————————

Brainstorming on solutions and problems done. Wow! As serious as this session has been, delegates have had it easy as the confidence level was at its best.

————10.14 am ————————————————

Delegates confessed enjoying the day and glad to be working in har-mony.

————Monday, 9.15 am ——————————

Every ITRE member joined in the session photo taken by the lakeside. Other committees didn’t show up complete, but ITRE’s commitment and discipline required all of the members to be present. Need we say more?

————9.25 am ————————————————

ITRE 1 delegates stayed back after the photo was taken to do a quick review and to finish up drafting solutions on the main topics. Congratulations to the committee chairs for their leadership skills.

————10.00 am ————————————————

Back in the committee room, delegates sat to finish identifying problems. The committee members can’t wait see the final draft. Yepee!

I s s u e 3


RECENT events such as the Arab Spring and its

aftermath, the astounding economic progress

of China and the EU’s handling of the financial

crisis have put the effectiveness of existing de-

mocracies into question. These developments

make it necessary to revisit the principles and

the implementation of democracy.

by Valerie Donschachner (Austria)

Essentially, democracy is about the members of an organisation having the right and the duty to participate in its decision-mak-

ing. This has several implications. First of all, it means that a system has to be devised to allow members to express their opinions and influ-ence decisions being made for all members. Sec-ondly, this means that democracy is not merely a political system, but a way of life.

Modern democracy is the child of the Eu-ropean Enlightenment, deemed to be the only political system that agrees with values central to the Enlightenment: freedom of the rational individual regarding speech, opinion and choice. In a democracy, citizens of a state ideally vote individually and according to rational choices

W H Y?D E M O C R A C Y

for certain policies; an idea that was revolution-ary in the mainly monarchist Europe of old.

Democracy combines aspects of two very dif-ferent kinds of social organisation: the instabil-ity of systems based on personal achievement (such as Melanesian societies with equal mem-bers except for a single leader) and the high lev-el of hierarchy of feudal societies (such as an-cestral Polynesian society). In a democracy, on the one hand, leadership must be earned – it is not inherited – and on the other hand, an elite is elected that is supposed to represent a certain group of people. If you constantly have to earn your position as a leader, your position is direct-ly dependent on the people, but planning ahead is more complicated as you cannot rely on still



being a leader tomorrow. Electing representa-tives, thereby creating an elite, makes it easier to make decisions. But the responsibility of de-cision-making is transferred from everyone to a select few. On the one hand you create instabili-ty, as members of a society compete for an elite position. But on the other hand, the individual responsibility is eliminated by delegating it to politicians – whereas individual responsibility is central to the Enlightenment.

Modern democracy usually works as follows: citizens of a state elect a party to then repre-sent their interests for a certain period of time – which makes planning easier. The party then chooses one representative for certain func-tions. But this representative does not necessar-ily represent the interests of the people who voted for the party, rather than the interests of the party itself. One basic interest of every party is to increase its influence and maximise its power. This can often be observed when one party gains the majority. Often, the majority party then does not take into account the in-terests of other parties, who were also elected to represent a certain group of citizens. In ef-fect, this means that the majority is allowed to dictate state policies for all, excluding the rest of the population. Is a tyranny of the majority democratic?

Yet democracy is also a way of life. It is about choosing how to design your future in consider-ation of and in cooperation with others. In mod-ern democracies, this way of life is restricted to voting; in most cases, people are not allowed to design their daily life directly – for instance, the way they work and the policies of the compa-nies they work for. How can you expect people to understand democracy if they only encoun-ter it a few times a year during election time?

Democracy is rooted in European history and political philosophy. Today, states are judged on an international level by their political system, democracy being the only acceptable final solu-tion, the ‘superhuman’ of political systems. But in the end, it is only one of many possible ways of organising society, many of which are com-patible with values of the Enlightenment.

To fully appreciate the value of democracy, it is important to first question it critically. Are the values of the Enlightenment that form the foundation of democracy universally valid? Is the system of representatives in the spirit of these founding values? How democratic are modern societies? Is democracy in its current form the best way of organising society, could it be improved or is something entirely different better? Why do you choose democracy?

I s s u e 3


T A K E O NT H E J O U R N A L I S T S

T H E T O P I C S

FOR the past three days, the various com-

mittees of the EAYP have had the chance to

discuss important and controversial topics

in global politics. The journalists attended

committee work with interest, but left the

debating to the delegates. Now, you have

the chance to read their points of view.

How should the EU and African nations work in

order to address the issues surrounding the humani-

tarian situation of African migrants to Europe?

The role of corporate social responsibility programmes:

How can states support and incentivise these structures

to ensure wider-spread and meaningful contribution to

the development agenda?

There is a clear correlation between a coun-try’s migration patterns and the level of de-velopment. The sad thing about it is how

vicious that circle can be: the more people (most of whom are part of the working age population) migrate, the more ‘brain drain’ in the country of origin, with, consequently, fewer possibilities for development. Europe, at an economic low, has had a hard time providing for immigrants’ needs and rights. A lot of criticism has been voiced on Europe’s common immigration policy, Frontex, because it has failed to deal with the humani-tarian situation of immigrants. In the meantime, immigrants, having difficulty to integrate in the new society, are becoming a scapegoat for inter-nal problems.

Before we adapt the European external border policies, our job is first and foremost to create jobs in the African countries, giving potential im-migrants a better alternative at home. This way their labour and intelligence can help develop their own country. Educational programs can play a role in this: European universities could set up affiliated branches in Africa, which ideally, in the course of time, would be taken over by African authorities and institutions.

by Zephyr Brüggen (Netherlands)

The main dilemma lies in finding the right balance between key players. Governments cannot regulate the way enterprises spend their money. International stakeholders are, on another note, restricted to a cer-tain shaping of national policies which, most of the times, comes down to informative gatherings, pro-viding subsidies and consultation. It is thus doubtful whether governments alone can impose mandatory measures on enterprises or even whether mandatory measures can be imposed in a free market econo-my. An internationally binding framework, a must in such case, will require taking into account every sin-gle national development agenda, thereby achieving a common understanding of how CSR programmes can be promoted and implemented.

From a European perspective, policies and net-works supporting social programmes are mainly found in the Scandinavian region, where enterpris-es are increasingly contributing to their community. While moving further to the south, we notice that countries, such as the Czech Republic or Croatia do not have authorised or capable instances dealing with CSR. Thus, with good judgement, one may first call for regional coherency before jumping into a fea-sible transcontinental program.

by Emiljo Jazxhi (Albania)

D R O I

I T R E I I



Read the journalists’ takes

on AFET, AGRI, CULT and

AFCO in issue 4!

“Inclusive and sustainable industrial development”

in Africa: How can sustainable growth be achieved

on the continent without compromising environ-

ment, health and quality of food produced for pres-

ent and future generations?

In an increasingly globalised market-

place opportunities for young entrepre-

neurs are greater than they have ever

been. How can European and African

nations ensure future business leaders

get the support they need?

The use of the environment for sustainable development in Africa is very essential in terms of fighting poverty and food insecurity. Sustainable development means that local

people’s concerns and the environment are taken into account, so that economic development and resources can be sustained for future generations.

This means that progress in environmental management should be encouraged in some parts of the continent. It is im-portant for authorities to consider the environment in order to avoid land degradation, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, pollu-tion, inadequate access to clean water and sanitation services, and poor urban conditions.

In Ghana, where I come from, there are great reserves of minerals such as gold. However, in extracting the gold to devel-op the country, more people are being hurt and the future of the country in terms of its natural resources is being put on the balance. Now, the government of Ghana is spending millions of cedis to deal with illegal mining. The illegal extraction of gold, usually called ‘galamseyers’, has polluted a lot of rivers and streams in the country. People’s farms, which served as their means of livelihoods, have also been destroyed. This means that there is an urgent need to have strong regulations and firm law enforcement agencies to deal with this crucial problem.

by Beatrice Adu (Ghana)

The committee had the herculean task of examining a challenging topic, as it is clear that opportu-

nities for young people to become en-trepreneurs in an increased globalised market are greater.

That notwithstanding, young peo-ple are saddled with the fear of not being successful once they begin their own work. The situation becomes dif-ficult when the young entrepreneur is not encouraged to continue the idea and inhibition are put on the way. The result is that hopes are dashed and for the unlucky ones, engaging in social vices in order to survive be-comes an option rather than a choice.

While access to capital is also a stumbling block to achieving entre-preneurial freedom, young people es-pecially those who benefit from start-up capital must endeavour to utilise the resources allocated to them.

Ghanaian president in a recent ad-dress to parliament about the state of the nation exclaimed how proud and comfortable he felt in wearing a pair of shoes made in Ghana and designed by a young Ghanaian entrepreneur. Suffice to say that if this act is repli-cated, it will boost the confidence of most young people to go into entre-preneurship and thus result in eco-nomic transformation.

by Thomas Adotei Pappoe (Ghana)

E N V I

I T R E I

I s s u e 3


Home sweet home

Emiljo Jazxhi, journalist from

Albania: “I’m from Albania and

I miss quality cheese.”

Ebenezer Martey (ENVI)

from Ghana: “I really miss

my waakye.”

Anya Kondratyuk (DROI) from

Ukraine: “I think the only food I miss

about Ukraine is our soup. It’s a kind

of red soup and I really miss it here.”

Joel Junior Namangue (ITRE I) from

Chad: “I’m really missing my fried rice

as I live in Ghana.”

by Beatrice Adu (Ghana)


1 0 F i r s t E u r o A f r i c a n Y o u t h P a r l i a m e n t

I F O R G O T T O B R I N G M Y …

John Essilfie Jnr

journalist from Ghana

“Oh my God, how can I forget my toothpaste”

Caroline Widmer (AGRI)

from Switzerland

“Forgot to bring one of my high heels, I only have one here”

Mohamed Konneh (AFET)

from Sierra Leone

“Oops, forgot washing soup and a towel”

François Heusser (ITRE I) from Switzerland: “Oh dear me I forgot to bring my comb” — Beatrice Adu, journalist from Ghana: “I for-got my mufti, all the dresses I have are formal” — Vera Ofori: “I was told it will be warm so that I would not need to bring a coat, and here I am freezing. Thank God I managed to buy one here.”

Nadine Saleh Nabel (AFET)

from Chad

“I forgot my hair spray”

Nelson Amo

vice-president from Ghana

“God, I forgot our kenkey and fish. It’s so bad!”

Marko Kolovrat (DROI)

from Croatia

“I forgot to bring my speakers to play music”

by John Essilfie Jnr (Ghana)

I s s u e 3

1 0 F i r s t E u r o A f r i c a n Y o u t h P a r l i a m e n t B e r l i n 2 0 1 4 1 1



I s s u e 3


euro africanYOUTH PARLIAMENT

27th March - 04th April 2014

A F

RU

ITF

UL

CO

OP

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ION THE FIRST Euro African Youth Parliament

certainly is the most progressive event of its kind. To make it happen, two organisations worked closely together: the European Youth Parliament and the Youth Bridge Foundation. Explore how this cooperation was made pos-sible, what the organisations are about and what their impact is.

It was a long way to go until participants from over 50 countries could finally gather in Berlin to kick-off the First EAYP. More than a year ago, the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ)

made contact between the African and the European organisations and indicated its support for a possible cooperation. Seth Oteng, ex-ecutive director of the Youth Bridge Foundation (YBF) in Accra, and Jakob Düringer, project manager for EYP SF (Schwarzkopf Foundation) in Berlin, then met and discussed the available options of how to col-laborate.

To begin with, observers from the YBF were welcomed at the EYP’s 72nd International Session that took place in Munich last year. This formed the basis for the next steps. Soon afterwards, a delegation of 10 EYP alumni participated in the aforementioned AYGC in August 2013. They returned from Accra with inspiring experiences and unforgetta-ble memories.

It is not easy to set up a cooperation when the headquarters of the organisations are thousands of kilometres apart. “We had a couple of learning curves together”, says our Vice-President Nelson Amo, when asked about the communication between the two actors. But there is not a single sign of resignation in his voice, it rather seems like he appreciates how both actors gained from the mutual learning.

The head-organisers are also very happy that the event finally turned out to run so smoothly, not least thanks to the diligent or-ganising team consisting of both Europeans and Africans. As one wise man once said, “there is no such thing comparable to the grandness of the EAYP”. It has been an extremely fruitful cooperation for everyone involved, filled with interesting encounters, a lot of mutual learning, plenty of brilliant discussions, broadened horizons, illuminated minds, lots of good craic and little sleep. Let’s hope it will not be the only one of its kind.

by John Essilfie Jnr (Ghana) & Lewin Schmitt (Germany)



The Youth Bridge Foundation (YBF) is a youth focused organisation, set up to create supportive platform and to challenge the creativity of the youth. In addition it aims at providing critical information and resources needed for

balanced development of the youth. The goal of the foundation is to promote the development of an environment that optimizes the potential of the youth and to support their development into responsible adulthood. Its focal areas are living envi-ronment, participation and empowerment, employment and entrepreneurship, and education and training.

The flagship programme of the YBF is the African Youth and Governance Con-ference (AYGC). Youth Bridge Foundation’s modest initiative which started in 2009 has gained wide international recognition and interest, making some remarkable achievements. In 2011, the foundation was accredited with UN Economic and Social Council Special Consultative Status: conferring on YBF a number of privileges and obligations in promoting youth development. The Foundation’s core mission is to bridge socio-economic-political gaps to ensure positive youth development.

In recognition of the absence of an annual event that brings together the youth of Africa to discuss pertinent issues affecting the continent’s development and the role of African’s youth, the foundation in 2009 pioneered the African Youth and Governance Conference. The AYGC initiative has since collaborated with the Ghana-ian government, through a non-partisan multi-sectorial support from the President, Interior Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Ministries of Youth and Sports. The next conference, bringing together more than 250 delegates from about 35 African countries and African diaspora, is planned to take place around the International Youth Day (IYD).

Watch out for the sixth AYGC in Lusaka, Zambia 2014! Visit aygconference.org for more information.

I s s u e 3


The European Youth Parliament (EYP) is a non-partisan and in-dependent educational organisation that brings together young people from 41 European countries. In 2013, the EYP network

carried out about 350 events and involved 27.000 young Europeans.

At the sessions, whether they are as short as one day or as long as the EAYP’s ten-day-format, participants get to debate and discuss current topics on the European agenda. Thereby, the EYP provides a unique platform for active European citizenship, intercultural dia-logue and cross-border friendships.

Aims of the EYP, supported by the Schwarzkopf Foundation on the international level, are to encourage independent thinking and so-cio-political initiative amongst young people; furthermore, to facili-tate the learning of crucial social and professional skills.

Great examples of active and professional alumnus volunteers are Jonathan Engel and Maximilian Kiehn, who took the initiative of or-ganising the First Euro African Youth Parliament. There were several actors involved in setting up this event, but the head-organisers defi-nitely deserve a medal for all the effort they put into this event.

As everyone who has ever attended an EYP session knows, there is a very special spirit amongst the participants. The organisation also puts great effort into cultural exchange and social interaction, as everybody who is attending the EAYP might currently be experiencing. Many lasting friendships have evolved thanks to the European Youth Parliament, and it seems that the same is proving true for the Euro African Youth Parliament.



I s s u e 3


Jörn Fritzenkötter, organiser from Germany – “I can-

not remember any odd moment because those happen

to me all the time, every single moment, so that I don’t

even pay attention to those anymore.”

Ololade Opadare (AFET) from Ni-

geria – Our delegation arrived in

Amsterdam hoping to catch the

next flight to Germany; instead

of following other travellers, we

were busy taking pictures, and

got missing for more than 30

minutes. We said we wanted to

pick our bags and put it on the

next flight not knowing that they

are sent directly to the final des-

tination. Everybody laughed at

us and we felt a bit embarrassed. Emmanuel Ashong, chair from

Ghana – I buttered my bread

with a chocolate spread at

breakfast. I also picked up some-

thing that I did not know to be

meat. Momentarily, I added the

meat to the spread bread and

everyone around the table was

looking at me. Chocolate togeth-

er with meat turned out to be a

bad combination, and the whole

thing was quite embarrassing.

Beatrice Adu, journalist from Ghana – I heard that we were

about to have rice for lunch. I quickly rushed in to the dining

hall and filled my plate excited for this treat. However I tast-

ed it, only to realize it was sugary, cold and hard. I ended up

swallowing it and not getting more.Anna Rumetshofer (ENVI)

from Austria – Anna and

the entire committee were

caught sharing a cup of jelly

with three different colours.

None of them liked the taste

but were trying to find out

which one was the best.

Thomas Adotei Pappoe, journalist from Ghana –

My colleagues were getting a drink and I felt like

joining them so I picked up a drink for myself too.

I returned to my seat only to realize just before

taking the first sip that what I had poured for

myself was actually olive oil.”

Odd EAYP moments



THERE are reasons for the poor average rank-

ing of educational institutions in Africa, rang-

ing from the lack of appropriate facilities to

academic shortcomings. Luckily, this is not

preventing African students from gathering

experience and different perspectives abroad.

by Emiljo Jazxhi (Albania)

A considerable number of participants from Ghana, especially Vera, co-chair of ITRE II, and Nelson, Vice-President of the session,

were willing to share their knowledge in this area. The latter did his master degree in the UK, with the help of a scholarship from the British government.

Apparently, Ghanaians going abroad for edu-cational purposes mainly do this either through the responsible institutions, such as the uni-versity they study at, or by being funded by the government itself. Although the selection process is highly influenced by the academic achievements and grades, interviews are con-ducted to affirm the validity of the latter along with other personality qualifications.

In addition, there is the German federal gov-ernment’s exchange service, even though less African students are involved in its projects. Worth mentioning are also the Junior Chamber International, with the aim of bringing about positive change, and ANUNSA, a recognised United Nations Youth and Students Association in Nigeria. Other than the above mentioned or-ganisations, there are not many interregional organisations operating in the spectrum of aca-demic youth projects in Africa.

Surveys have shown that promoting the diversity of student opportunities amongst youngsters is more than necessary in Africa. It occurs that the potentially interested public is not fully aware of the requirements, procedures and the main aim of existing programmes. Fur-thermore, the main target of these programmes

E X C H A N G EI S S U E S

strictly remains the students with the highest grades, which is fair from an academic point of view, while it is arguable whether the first step of introduction to these programmes could be linked to personal aims and capabilities of the students. This method has been applied to similar exchanges within the Member States of the EU and has proved to work well. Further constructive ideas involve the inclusion of more universities in the list of partner universities, a list currently limited mostly to universities that provide scholarships for African exchange stu-dents.

The activity of one specific student-run or-ganization shall not be left unacknowledged: AIESEC, which has made an experience abroad possible for a large number of students. Some have come to observe that AIESEC’s work is much more appreciated in developing coun-tries than in countries like Germany. Its inner structure includes the recruiting of new mem-bers every semester, students voluntarily work-ing for the organisation. As cliché as this may sound, determination and an open mind are in-deed requirements, albeit not officially.

Gbemisola Osadua (NG), chairperson of AFCO, explained the numerous collaborations between Nigerian and British Universities. One may say that the main reason for the UK being the host of a considerable percentage of African exchange students is its programmes in English and the scholarships British institutions can of-fer. Similarly, the number of projects launched by American embassies is very high, especially when compared to Europe-originated activities. Considering this, one instantly wonders why other prominent European institutions of high-er education, such as German and French ones, are not very competitative in academic invest-ments and assisting educational institutions in Africa.

On another note, Henry Namwenda (ZM), delegate of ITRE I, expressed his concern re-garding the lack of transcontinental exchange programmes available in countries such as his homeland. As it seemed like gaining an oppor-tunity in these countries will not be possible anytime soon, Henry volunteered abroad. His accommodation and essential needs were cov-ered by the British Council. This makes one once again question the reasons other institu-tions throughout Europe have for not investing as much in Zambia or other countries in com-parable stage of development.

I s s u e 3


Date post:	28-Mar-2016
Category:	Documents
Upload:	harm-van-leeuwen
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Kaleidoscope 3

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