This year’s EPF Youth Group spring meeting was held in beautiful Vienna and began with a group dinner to catch up and welcome the new members in to the EPF family. Jana Popova from Bulgaria, Patrik Puljic´ from Croatia and Magdalena Döragrip from Sweden were all warmly welcomed by the “old” members of the Youth Group during the dinner, which mainly consisted of the real authentic Wiener schnitzel. A really good start to the weekend, if you ask me!
Introduction of members and brainstorming
Day two started with both old and new members getting the opportunity to introduce themselves to the rest of the group. For a new member like me, this was a very valuable way to get to know each other and what our goals are. It was also very interesting to hear about all the different conditions other members of the youth group have, and all the activities in which they are involved at national and international level.
We spent the rest of the day brainstorming on new projects, ideas and themes for 2018 and 2019. Sara Gayarre, EPF Communications Officer, led the debate on how we can improve our visibility towards the public, from increasing our presence on social media and on the EPF blog, to better cover and report about speaking engagements. We discover new ways to increase our visibility; some of them I never thought about before, but we will definitely put them into practice!
What is next?
On the last day, we got some updates about what is happening in different EPF working groups and projects and we discussed how the youth group can get involved and contribute with its vision to their development.
We also agreed on which topic we will be working on for the rest of the year and it was decided that until the end of 2018 we will focus on employment and access to education, and from 2019 on sexual education and sexual health.
Finally, we were also recording some shoots for the next promotional video of the EPF Youth Group. Stay tuned after the summer for what I believe will be a great video!
