European Educational Exchanges – Youth for Understanding

European Educational Exchanges - Youth for Understanding (EEE-YFU)
Founded	1985
Type	Educational NGO
Location	Brussels, Belgium;
Area served	Europe and International
Key people	Chair – Marc Weiss, Vice Chair - Sara Brandt Treasurer – Liviu Grigorescu Board members – Knut Möller, Gregory Matheson, Laura Gabriela Balanescu [1]
Website	www.eee-yfu.org

Last updated March 31, 2019

European Educational Exchanges – Youth for Understanding (EEE-YFU) is an international youth exchange non-profit organisation, founded in 1985.^[2] It is the umbrella body for national Youth For Understanding organisations across Europe and consists of 28 members.

A student exchange program is a program in which students from a secondary school or university study abroad at one of their institution's partner institutions.

An umbrella organization is an association of institutions, who work together formally to coordinate activities or pool resources. In business, political, or other environments, one group, the umbrella organization, provides resources and often an identity to the smaller organizations. Sometimes in this kind of arrangement, the umbrella organization is to some degree responsible for the groups under its care.

Youth For Understanding (YFU) is an international educational exchange organization. A network of over 50 independent national organizations worldwide, YFU representatives work together to advance learning across cultures. Within each country's culture, YFU organizations subscribe to and operate under a common set of principles and standards that aim to facilitate cooperation and harmony.

Mission and history

The mission of EEE-YFU is to advance intercultural understanding, mutual respect, and social responsibility through educational exchanges for youth, families, and communities.

YFU was founded shortly after the end of World War II, in 1951.^{[ citation needed ]} It is one of the world's oldest education exchange organisations and currently^{[ when? ]} has programmes in about 60 countries around the world.^{[ citation needed ]} Founded to allow young Germans the opportunity to experience another culture outside of their own, YFU organised for them to go on exchange to the United States in order to see what life was like there and to develop an understanding of democracy. Since then YFU has grown and now sends young people between 15 and 18 years old on international high school exchanges to other countries, where the students will live with and become a part of a host family. National YFU organisations from around the world are all independent from one another. However, there does exist an International Secretariat in order to facilitate co-operation and communication amongst them on a global scale, and to provide them with support.

World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.

Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North Seas to the north, and the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, France to the southwest, and Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands to the west.

Aims

EEE-YFU is a member organisation, and its members are national YFU organisations in Europe. Unlike the national YFU organisations, it is not involved with the actual logistics and organising of the exchanges. Instead, it is a member organisation which focuses on representing the interests of its members in several different ways. In supporting its members, EEE-YFU has the following aims: to promote intercultural understanding through youth exchange programmes in Europe; to enhance the public visibility for Youth For Understanding in Europe and with European institutions and organisations; to enrich the experience of European exchange students by facilitating educational and content related activities; to facilitate co-operation and networking between member organisations and to provide membership services; to facilitate intra-European activities such as seminars, meetings and conferences on various topics; and to assist in planning and conducting international training for staff and volunteers.

The institutions of the European Union are the seven principal decision making bodies of the European Union (EU). They are, as listed in Article 13 of the Treaty on European Union:

Composition

The organisation has its offices in Brussels, Belgium, where it works towards representing its members' interests at European level and to facilitate co-ordination between its national members.

Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, is a region of Belgium comprising 19 municipalities, including the City of Brussels, which is the capital of Belgium. The Brussels-Capital Region is located in the central portion of the country and is a part of both the French Community of Belgium and the Flemish Community, but is separate from the Flemish Region and the Walloon Region. Brussels is the most densely populated and the richest region in Belgium in terms of GDP per capita. It covers 161 km² (62 sq mi), a relatively small area compared to the two other regions, and has a population of 1.2 million. The metropolitan area of Brussels counts over 2.1 million people, which makes it the largest in Belgium. It is also part of a large conurbation extending towards Ghent, Antwerp, Leuven and Walloon Brabant, home to over 5 million people.

EEE-YFU consists of a Board, which has the ultimate responsibility for the overall strategic direction of the organisation, as well as the European Secretariat based in its office in Brussels. The Secretariat regularly has interns and volunteers (often from the European Voluntary Service programme) working in the office.

A board of directors is a group of people who jointly supervise the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit business, nonprofit organization, or a government agency. Such a board's powers, duties, and responsibilities are determined by government regulations and the organization's own constitution and bylaws. These authorities may specify the number of members of the board, how they are to be chosen, and how often they are to meet.

European Voluntary Service (EVS) is the European Commission's project that allows a young person to become a volunteer in another country for a specified period, normally between 2–12 months. The service activities can be, for example, in the field of environment, arts and culture, activities with children, young people or the elderly, heritage or sports and leisure activities. Each project has three partners, a volunteer, a sending organisation and a host organisation. The project has to take place in a country other than where the volunteers lives, is non-profit-making and unpaid and lasts for a limited period.

EEE-YFU is an international non-profit organisation under Belgian law (AISBL).

Partners and funding

EEE-YFU works alongside a number of external organisations, and is regularly granted funding for projects and initiatives by European institutions and other bodies. Its partners include the Council of Europe Directorate of Youth & Sports, the European Commission, the European Youth Forum and the Platform for Intercultural Europe, as well as many others. It receives funding from the European Commission, the Council of Europe and the Belgian state, as well as other bodies. EEE-YFU also works closely with other NGOs involved in the youth field, particularly in relation to organising activities.

Activities

EEE-YFU works in three main areas: Capacity building; advocacy and representation; and knowledge building and networking.

The organisation fulfills its objectives by organising and facilitating educational activities to provide on-going education in cross-cultural issues to its students, returnees and volunteers. These help to promote intercultural dialogue and youth participation for a wide range of young people across Europe. EEE-YFU organises activities such as study sessions, trainings and seminars on various cultural and youth-related issues both nationally and on a European level. In doing so it often works closely with its member organisations. An important feature of EEE-YFU's activities is to encourage those students who have participated in exchanges to continue to be involved with YFU by volunteering once they return home. This will help to continue the cycle of learning and will allow YFU to reach out to more young people.

EEE-YFU has its own "European Trainer Network", composed of 13 young trainers from 10 different countries,^[3] which provides its member organisations with a pool of young people with relevant expertise and knowledge that they can use to organise and facilitate a range of events. This aims to help to increase the capacity for multiplication of competences and knowledge within the international YFU network, and for contributing to the development of training structures of national YFU organisations to provide high quality educational activities. EEE-YFU also has a "Pool of Representatives", composed of 33 young people from various member organisations. The members are an important tool for EEE-YFU's advocacy work, representing EEE-YFU on various seminars, working groups, meetings, conferences and other events.^[4]

Members

The following YFU national organisations are members of EEE-YFU: Austria, Belarus, Belgium (Flanders & Wallonia), Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine.

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References

↑ "Board". EEE-YFU.
↑ "European Educational Exchanges – Youth for Understanding (EEE-YFU)". Platform for Intercultural Europe . Retrieved 20 July 2014. External link in |publisher= (help)
↑ "European Trainer Network". EEE-YFU.
↑ "Pool of Representatives". EEE-YFU.

External links

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[press-1] "Board". EEE-YFU.

[2] "European Educational Exchanges – Youth for Understanding (EEE-YFU)". Platform for Intercultural Europe . Retrieved 20 July 2014. External link in |publisher= (help)

[3] "European Trainer Network". EEE-YFU.

[4] "Pool of Representatives". EEE-YFU.

Founded	1985 (1985)
Type	Educational NGO
Location	Brussels, Belgium
Area served	Europe and International
Key people	Chair – Marc Weiss, Vice Chair - Sara Brandt Treasurer – Liviu Grigorescu Board members – Knut Möller, Gregory Matheson, Laura Gabriela Balanescu^[1]
Website	www.eee-yfu.org