The 7 YoungCaritas in Europe organizations, from Luxembourg, France, Germany, Austria, Vienna, South-Tirol and Switzerland, met on the 23rd of January to evaluate the strategic partnership of the European YoungCaritas Network and to plan its future.
In 2017 the YoungCaritas in Europe started the campaign “You are welcome – young ideas for a solidary world”. The network itself was formed in 2014, aiming to support and bring young people together who are interested in relevant issues. At the meeting in Winterthur we collected the learnings of previous events to make a program for 2019. After a pleasant start with coffee and a happy meet again, we began with the first point on the agenda:
Review and evaluation of the partnership.
We remembered the amount of challenges that we overcame, but also the fruits beared by the work of the seven YoungCaritas organizations and its volunteers.
Last February, young volunteers came together and thought of an action for European solidarity. In November, 31 countries signed the “Vienna Declaration on YoungCaritas” and promised to deploy young commitment. Alltogether it was a successful year.
Day 2: After a good breakfast we took action on how to improve the administration and coordination of the YoungCaritas in Europe. The YoungCaritas employees agreed on the fact that they had become a great team over the years. Yet finances and administration still are a part of our daily business and there is always improvement potential. The afternoon was far more creative since it came to the annual planning. We set the dates of the Plan Action and the Actionmeetings, picked out interesting issues to discuss and agreed on the place of the Training Activity. All-day meetings often are exhausting, that’s why we went to a restaurant, to toast to a well-earned evening and our accomplished work.
We did not have much rest, because on the next day we had to discuss the future of this strategic partnership. Again the employees of the seven YoungCaritas organizations used all their energy and motivation to discuss the necessary next steps. Who took part in the meeting could see once again how much commitment and with what an enthusiasm the YoungCaritas stands for a solidary and a linked Europe.
You want to network with YoungCaritas volunteers all over Europe? Soon we will have many possibilities for you.
Stay tuned here on youngcaritas.eu 🙂
by Nora Engler, youngCaritas Switzerland
