EBU Youth Commission

Report to the 7th General Assembly













1. Introduction

This report describes the activity in the European Blind Union Youth Commission (EBUyc) 1999 – 2003. The report includes a list of members and meetings, political work, resolutions and a short description of EBUyc’s first European summer camp for visually impaired youth.
Finally, we will focus on important tasks for the work of the next youth commission.




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2. Members

The European Blind Union Youth Commission 1999 – 2003 has had the following members :

Mr. Einar Fiskvik, Chairperson (Norway)
Mrs. Maria Luisa Bonzo, Vice-chairperson (Italy)
Mrs. Arzu Senyurt (Turkey)
Ms. Arzu Bulut (France)
Mr. Argiris Triantafilou (Greece)
Mr. Eugenio Martin (Spain)
Ms. Ludmila Kukhareva (Belarus)
Mr. Darren Lindsay (United Kingdom)
Mr. Cyril Mizrahi (Switzerland)
Mr. Iiro Nummela (Finland)
Mr. Yannis Vardakastanis has been the youth commission’s link-person to the EBU Board.




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3. Meetings

The Youth Commission had many members in this period. It has been very difficult to get all of the commission members to attend the meetings.
We have had six meetings in the youth commission. The venues for these meetings have been Athens (Greece), Geneva (Switzerland), Almeria (Spain), Newcastle (United Kingdom), Turin (Italy) and Minsk (Belarus).
We would like to thank all of the hosting organisations for their hospitality and outstanding arrangements.
The commission has also worked by using e-mail and via the Internet.




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4. Political Work

To most of the commission members working on a European level was a relatively new experience when our time in office started. The challenge such great distances offers in itself has been a headache for us all from time to time. As mentioned it has been hard to gather all of the commission’s members, and this does hurt the continuity of a commission’s work. Another thing that has been a bit of a challenge to us is the long distance between thought and action when you are so far from people you wish to work for.

As a consequence of this, we have not been able to reach the level of concrete results we hoped to, when our plan of action was composed. However, these are the areas we have paid special attention to over the last four years:

a- Education :
Education is one of the most important issues for all youth. It seems to be the safest path to success in our societies. Being educated gives opportunity to become integrated, because a good system of education should be meritocratic, and impartial. However, this is not always the case, and visually impaired are discriminated against in many cases.

The commission has tried to look into the matter, and the Youth Commission’s vice-chair, Maria Luisa Bonzo, has been our link-person to the EBU Commission on Education. The EBUyc has also spent a fair amount of time on looking into the challenges with student exchange programs.

b- Equality :
The Youth Commission has cooperated with the EBU Women's Commission for quite some time. This has proved to be most inspiring, because visually impaired people's fight to be recognised as equals is similar to the struggle women have fought over the last decades.

The commission has also tried to accentuate the need for equality and mutual respect between generations. What is right is right due to the facts it is based on - not due to the age, gender or appearance of those claiming it.

c- Independence and mobility :
The loss of freedom many visually impaired experience is in our opinion neither fair nor necessary. We know for a fact that with the appropriate technical aids and training, visually impaired people are able to be almost as independent as any other person. This is the reason we have focused so much on visually impaired youth’s opportunities to travel, study abroad and get into international politics and current affairs.

d- Improvements of communication and promotion of political initiatives among visually impaired youth :
The commission has on several occasions been asked to focus on the lack of youth within the EBU system, and also the national organizations. This has been a recurrent theme on our meetings, and the most obvious challenge to be solved on this matter is the lack of appropriate forums for youth to discuss formally and, even more importantly, informally.

As society gets more and more complex, it would be pretentious to believe that a young person can just jump right into the middle of it. This is why the commission see a definitive need for a good forum for youth on the Internet, regular opportunities to meet and to simply share their experiences.

It is always a subject in which manner something should be conducted. We appeal to the EBU to be open-minded and tolerant to attempts on new solutions that might help capture the interest of more youth.



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5. International Youth Camp for Visually Impaired

For the first time in the EBUyc history – an international youth summer camp was arranged for blind an partially sighted youth in Europe. On initiative from the EBUyc, and by goodwill and much work from the Polish Association for the Blind, the first European youth summer camp for visually impaired was held in Poland in the beginning of July 2003.

The goal for the camp was both to let visually impaired youth meet in an informal environment and also to discuss tasks and solutions on how visual impaired youth can get a better European society.

The EBUyc will underline the importance of gatherings like this. It is a unique place to meet and exchange information. It is also important that youths that not are active in the political work, get to know about organisations as the EBU, and the respective national organisations. Another important point is that visually impaired youth that are not members of the EBUyc can also take part in composing resolutions about the blind and partially sighted youth in Europe.



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6. Resolutions

Based on the workshops held at the European international summer camp in Poland in July 2003, the EBUyc made three resolutions. The resolutions are attached to this report. The Youth Commission means that these resolutions show very clearly what the visually impaired youth in Europe are concerned about.



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7. Future Work - the next youth commission

It is important that the members in the commission are active. The countries that nominate members to the commission should know that their candidates will and can do a good job in the commission. The national organizations should also be aware of the expenses involved in nominating a commission member.

It has been difficult to get all the members to participate in the work, especially when it comes to the work between the meetings. It is of great importance that the youth commission establishes good working routines as early as possible in the working period.

We strongly recommend that the next youth commission works against a 2nd European summer camp for visually impaired in the next working period. We think that it will be fruitful for the political work among visually impaired youth to arrange such a camp every two years. To guarantee a successful arrangement, the planning should start at least 18 months before the camp should take place.



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8. Conclusion

Finally, the European Blind Union Youth Commission 1999 – 2003 would like to thank everybody that has helped and supported us during this working period. We wish the next Youth Commission good luck in their important work.



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