AEGEE: Encyclopedia - AEGEE

AEGEE

AEGEE, (French: Association des Etats Généraux des Etudiants de l’Europe), the European Students' Forum, is one of Europe's largest interdisciplinary student organisations. It takes its name from the Aegean sea, one of the birthplaces of democracy, and from the first parliament established at the dawn of the French Revolution, the "Etats Généraux."

AEGEE - Description

The association was established in 1985, and now has about 15 000 members in 204 university cities in 40 countries throughout Europe.

AEGEE promotes a unified Europe, cross-border co-operation, communication and integration in the academic environment. It is not linked to any political party, and has no national structures, operating only on the local and European levels.

AEGEE - History

The association was born in 1985 at the first EGEE event: an assembly in Paris of students from Paris, Leiden, London, Madrid, Milan and Munich, organised by its founder, Franck Biancheri.

October 1986 Three EGEE working groups were formed: Sponsoring, Traineeships and Language Study. A conference on cross-border developments in Nijmegen. With the start of the academic year EGEE-Europe has 26 branches and 6,000 members.

November 1986 Heidelberg: a conference on relations between the Far East and Europe. Toulouse: the 'First European Space Weekend'.

December 1986 Paris: a conference on the pharmaceutical industry in Europe. Munich: a conference on the European Monetary System.

In 1987 AEGEE-Europe obtained an important result, by successfully persuading François Mitterrand to support funding for the Erasmus programme, a student exchange program financed by the European Commission.

In 1988 the association changed the name from EGEE to AEGEE.

In 1989 The Berlin Wall crumbled; AGORA in Salerno decided to open up to the East. AEGEE was one of the first European organisations to expand beyond the old Iron Curtain into Eastern Europe.

In 1990 New AEGEE logo representing: your Key to Europe.

May 1990 Les Anciens d'AEGEE was founded in Paris during the EGEE VI meeting.

In 1995 the head office of the organisation moved to Brussels, and Ankara and all other cities in Turkey was accepted into the network.

In 1998 AEGEE organised its first visit to Cyprus; AEGEE-Magusa (Famagusta) joined the association in 2001.

April 1999 Foundation of the AEGEE-Academy at the AGORA Barcelona, triggered by preparations made during the European School in Gießen. This Human Resources Working Group gave a high stress to training events, highly sharpening the profile of AEGEE in this respect.

2000 'Education for Democracy': the new scholarship programme which en-ables students from war-shattered Kosovo to study at universities abroad. In this same year, members of AEGEE-Beograd were standing in the first row when the Milosevic dictatorship was defeated during autumn.

In 2001 and 2002 AEGEE organised several major projects focusing on peace and stability in South East Europe and in the Mediterranean region.

2003 saw AEGEE's first study trip to the Caucasus. AEGEE-Europe organised the first international student conference in the buffer zone on Cyprus.

AEGEE - Activities

AEGEE organises a wide range of projects, most of which relate to one of four main fields of action: Active Citizenship, Higher Education, Peace & Stability, and Cultural Exchange.

AEGEE - Active Citizenship

AEGEE is an independent non-party political organisation, working closely with governments, institutions and other NGOs to realise its goals for Europe. AEGEE aims to provide a political voice for its members at every level, organising conferences on a range of topics and using the results to lobby European institutions.

AEGEE - Higher Education

AEGEE represents students who care about the European dimension of higher education. As well as encouraging student mobility, AEGEE supports language learning, promotes international cooperation in the academic world, and campaigns for the further development of European education programmes.

AEGEE - Peace and Stability

By encouraging democratic ideals, tolerance and mutual understanding between young adults from communities in conflict, AEGEE contributes to conflict resolution in the Balkans, the Caucasus, on Cyprus, and in Greece and Turkey. AEGEE also organises conferences and seminars on international political issues.

AEGEE - Cultural Exchange

Building respect and appreciation between people of different cultures is core to all of AEGEE's work. AEGEE sees this field of action as the core of European integration, believing that integration can never be a top-down process, but must be based on friendship among the peoples of Europe. AEGEE groups organise a substantial number of cultural exchange events every year.

See also

• Les Anciens d'AEGEE

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "AEGEE", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki