Here is our call for papers. You are welcome to participate!
The upcoming Workshop of the YCDN has been changed to Munich and will take place on June 22nd 2013. More information will follow soon.
Hi everyone, YCDN – The Young Citizens Danube Network participates for a contest of magazine “Der Freitag” which aims to support civil society groups.
Please vote for YCDN/Stiftung Junge Bürger im Donauraum and spread the word!
The knowledge of HOW to “sell” WHAT!
On the first weekend of March parts of the PR team (Zita Mirk and Oliver Rott) together with their team leader Tina Miedtank went to the beauty of lower-saxonian remoteness – two days of workshop with the SDW (Foundation of German Business) – two days all around businessplans and marketing, canvas models and press relations, changing your own ideas and presenting them and changing them … and presenting again.
The SDW invited three coaches: Dr. Alexander Knuth, Business- and political consultant, Jean-Christophe Binetti, CONVIS Marketing and Consult and Betina Thamm, responsible for press- and media communications with the SDW.
First of all, within the process of concretising the business plan the project idea was once again slightly revised and modernised in order to get a matching with what we were going to learn is essential for business plans: A target group and a product you offer:
Our target group was pretty easily defined. 18 – 35 year old young people from the Danube region, currently studying or doing their PhD who want to be either politically, socially, culturally or societally active. Considering the huge problems this specific age group faces in some countries of the Danube region, the product to be “sold” wasn’t to hard to be be guessed.Crucial in it is the idea that YCDN wants to create a platform for a interdisciplinary discurse, where the young generation can get together, get to know each other and especially gets rid of old prejudices – in short: We want to bridge the whole Danube region and create something that is like a common young identity, a common understanding and especially a common ground for future cooperation. The key word in our strategy therefore is: Sustainability. That’s why our product actually offers a broad variety of products: diverse workshops in the Danube region, on youth policies and so on; Creating a digital and a non-digital network of young, motivated Danubians. This should, at a later stage, all lead to a YCDN that is representing the young Danube Citizens, gives them a voice and advocates their needs on a political lever by informing them about their actual situation.
YCDN wins the prize The Challenge of Entrepreneuship 2013 (Herausforderung Unternehmertum 2013), a joint initiative by the Heinz Nixdorf Foundation and the Foundation of German Business.
Herausforderung Unternehmertum is a one year program to strengthen the entrepreneurial skills of the YCDN team. The program offers €15.000 and a customized training program, including team building, project management, creating a business plan, the legal basics of a business, marketing and press and public relations seminars. During this year Robert Biskop, the head of the German foundation Elemente der Begeisterung and Thomas Luk, a McKinsey consultant, coach the YCDN team. This program enables the team to further develop the YCDN network and formalise it.
In January and February the YCDN team, consisting of Johann-Jakob Wulf, Zita Mirk, Oliver Rott, Anja Bossow, Marin Zec, Tina Miedtank and Marlon Körner met in Berlin to set up a project plan together with their two coaches. The result is that the team aims to establish a foundation at the end of the year.
Connected by the Danube, but connected through media as well?
by Zita Mirk Young Citizens Danube Network Responsible for PR Budapest, 3rd December 2012
This was the main question for all the participants of the first “Danube Dialogue” conference organized by the City Vienna and by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF). Journalists, media experts and various civil society actors discussed the possibility of establishing a transnational media platform in order to mutually communicate about regional issues. Regardless whether you live in a well-developed region of the EU or in a Central-Eastern European, nowadays everybody understands that the “European dream” faces its biggest economic and social challenges since the Second World War. Almost weekly, political leaders hold meetings in various compositions in order to manage the euro crisis. Politicians play their extraordinary card game in Brussels negotiating millions and billions of Euros. Not as a surprise that in this atmosphere the man in the street easily overlooks the many advantages of being a European citizen. Freedom of movement, peace on the continent, solidarity – all of these positive achievements seem to be forgotten. We rather focus on our own national and personal well-being and we do not really care about what happens in our neighboring countries; what happens in the Danube Region. The European founding fathers, like Schuman or Adenauer imagined a union that is based among others on strong, equally developed regions. They definitely did not envision a union which fails to invest into its future generation and which is confronted with 5.678 million young people (under 25) who cannot find a job. This is one reason why the Council of the European Union has endorsed the EU Strategy for the Danube Region on 13 April 2011. If we want to fill this strategy with content and make out of this a real success to improve regional cooperation, then concrete steps need to be taken. This ought not to be expected just from the huge machinery of the EU institutions and from the often criticized eurocrats. Building our strong, economic and cultural prosperous Danube Region should be ideally a “bottom-up” process. For this reason, it is essential to create a common basis for the communication as well. On the 21th September 2012 assembled journalists and other civil organizations in Vienna. The variety of the participants is without doubt a sign that many of us understand the integrative role of a common media appearance. What kind of content do we want to communicate? Whom do we want to reach and what do we want to achieve with our messages? How do we want to realize it? Which language is our lingua franca in Central Europe? All these questions have been discussed within several workshops. We can conclude that social media, a common web platform is the most proper way for the mentioned purposes. Journalists from each of the 14 Danube countries could contribute in the future with their articles about politics, life-style, or environmental issues in English. A surprise is that the radio in the 21st century still stays a significant tool to reach a great number of people. A Danubian web radio would be a perfect solution to construct age specified alternative public spheres, exchange ideas and music not to forget. In 2012 it is the 300th anniversary of the departure of emigrants downstream the Danube from Ulm. The success of the Danube festival, organized since 1998 every two years, reminds us that Europe and our region is more than a strategy paper, it has to be understood as a community. The next get-together of journalists from the Danube countries takes place on the 14th December 2012 in Serbia’s capital. Belgrade is pretty far from the Brussels negotiating tables, but hopefully the output of the brainstorming will be a major step toward the people. A common communication platform would be an ideal tool to inform citizens and boost “bottom-up” processes.
Please find out more about the upcoming conference. If you have any remarks about the participation or you want the YCDN to speak of your behalf, please let us know: contact@ycdn.eu
http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/conferences/danube_forum2012/agenda_en.cfm#wks5
Konferenz Migration im Donauraum
Bericht über die YCDN Teilnahme
Konferenz „Migration im Donauraum – Chancen nutzen, Potentiale erkennen“
Fand am 24.07.2012 im Neuen Schloss Stuttgart statt
I. Allgemein über die Konferenz
Die Konferenz hat das in vielen Bereichen – Wirtschaft, Wissenschaft, Kultur und Zivilgesellschaft – relevante Thema der Migration im Donauraum behandelt. Die Migration verläuft derzeit von Ost nach West, was in den Ländern Osteuropas zu einem Brain Drain führt, der sich in allen o.g. Bereich deutlich auswirkt und die Entwicklung dieser Länder massiv beeinträchtigt. Nach der einstündigen Gesprächsrunde mit der Teilnahme u.a. von Herrn Minister Friedrich zum Thema DRS, haben Herr Erler (MdB), Herr Juratovic (MdB) und Herr Prof. Trasch einen kurzen „key note“ Rede gehalten. Der nächste Programmpunkt waren die drei Workshops nach den thematischen Schwerpunkten der Konferenz.
II. Ablauf: Workshop 2 – Auswirkungen der Migration auf Zivilgesellschaft und Kultur
In der Organisation des Staatsministeriums fand im Rahmen der Konferenz zum Thema Zivilgesellschaft und Kultur im Donauraum das Workshop 2. Die Diskussion wurde von Peter Langer von der Europäischen Donau-Akademie moderiert.
Die Teilnehmer der Paneldiskussion waren:
- Stefan Barth, Mitglied der Geschäftsführung, Jürgen Klinsmann Stiftung
- Luminita Ciuflea, Malerin, Rumänischer Kulturverein e.V. Ulm
- Josip Juratovic, SPD Politiker, MdB
- Stefan Lütgenau, Historiker, Präsident von Danube Civil Society Forum
- Márton Méhes, Direktor des Collegium Hungaricum Wien
- Zita Mirk, Mitglied des Young Citizen Danube Network, Walter Hallstein Stipendiatin
- Igor Samardzic, Rechtsanwalt, Mitglied der Deutsch-Serbischen Gesellschaft
Im Rahmen des Gesprächs haben die Teilnehmer in einer eher informellen Form über den eigenen Migrationshintergrund und die Bedeutung des Donauraums aus der eigenen Perspektive berichtet. Obwohl die Herkunft und der Karriereweg meist unterschiedlich ist, kann die prägende Rolle der Donauregion aus kultureller Hinsicht bei allen festgestellt werden. Beleuchtet worden durch den individuellen Perspektiven mit der Migration zusammenhängende Chancen und Herausforderungen. Hierzu gehören die Mehrsprachigkeit und die interkulturelle Kompetenz. Das Erlernen der deutschen Sprache und die Anpassung an das neue kulturelle Umfeld ist ein wesentliches Element, bei Menschen die selbst von Migration betroffen sind. Betont wurde, dass BW eine Art Drehscheibe Rolle in der Region aus vielerlei Hinsicht spielt, so in dem kulturellen Leben und auch in Zivilgesellschaft. Zudem wurde umfangreich über die einzelnen Initiativen im Donauraum in diesem Bereich berichtet. Mit der Teilnahme des YCDN wurde Frage der Teilnahme und die Mobilität der jungen Generation im Donauraum angesprochen.
Die Äußerungen der Panelteilnehmer waren von einer Fragenrunde mit der Einbeziehung aller Teilnehmer gefolgt. Der Workshop war von einigen persönlichen Anmerkungen zum Thema bereichert. Der Workshop kann insgesamt als erfolgreich bewertet werden. Dank der Moderation von Herrn Langer herrschte eine informelle Stimmung während dem Gespräch. Die bunte Zusammensetzung der Teilnehmer konnte die kulturelle Vielfältigkeit der Donauregion gut widerspiegeln. Die Einbeziehung der Bürger durch die unterschiedlichen Initiativen (z.B. Danube Civil Society Forum, YCDN) und die aktive Teilnahme in der Zivilgesellschaft sind als eindeutigen Prioritäten identifiziert worden. Weitere Zielsetzung ist die Stärkung des regionalen Denkens, sowie die Förderung der Mobilität im Sinne der Verwirklichung von „brain circulation“ statt „brain drain“.
FreedomKeepers.EU is a campaign against human trafficking in the Danube region.
