Sessions

7th Meeting of the European University for Volunteering, 2014, Rolduc / NL and Aachen / GER

From 9 to 12 September 2014, the seventh European University on Volunteering (EUV 2014) took place in Aachen (DE) and Rolduc (NL). Under the theme "Citizenship: Responsibility for Democracy and Social Participation", students, practitioners and citizens from all over Europe were warmly invited.

Goals and topics

A Europe of citizens thrives on a lively exchange about civil society and the importance of civic engagement in the respective societies - this is what the EFU 2014 serves.

For a common democratic Europe, the social participation of all people is constitutive. The 2014 EFU focused on the exchange of responsibility, democracy and social participation.

The thesis of the Volunteer University 2014 reads: Civic engagement implements the three foundations of all European societies:

• Democracy,
• Social participation and
• Responsibility in very different initiatives and forms of participation.

The European countries are challenged to recognize the democracy that is lived by citizens, their responsibility for civil society and the human right to social participation of all as fundamental rights. 

The All-European Democracy Project is being continued by dedicated citizens - the 2014 EFU contributed to the following events:

• "Are all really welcome?" - Exclusion processes in civic engagement
• "I cooperate, so I am ... human!"
• Civic engagement in a migration society - a dialogic perspective
• Social commitment and democracy - unused opportunities
• Opportunities and forms of children and youth participation
• International Voluntary Services - Commitment worldwide
• Climate change between the generations? - How to combine intergenerational learning and civic engagement
• Monetization of volunteer work? - when money plays a role in engagement
• Binding as a prerequisite for cooperation
• Family sponsorships - volunteering for children and families
• Gentrification - civil society resistance to the displacement of urban poor
• Between the worlds - the civic contribution of international aid organizations
• Is human dignity divisible? About humiliation and responsibility
• Voluntary work and organization - The acquisition of full-time employees as the core issue of volunteer work
• Commitment to the repressive environment - The role of civil society in Turkey
• Civic engagement as a contribution to the deescalation or escalation of violent dynamics - food for thought from the perspective of conflict-sensitive development cooperation
• Charisms and Spiritual Dimension in Volunteering
• Migrant Self-Organizations (MSO) - ways out of the niche
• How inclusive are social institutions? - Implementation of volunteer work in institutions
• Volunteer Centers (FWZ) - in the area of tension between subsidiarity and instrumentalization
• Everything for the nation? - Extremely right-wing strategies and civil society
• CyberVolunteering - a new form of citizen participation
• Citizens' initiatives in the district - a district comes alive
• Community Care and Citizenship

Further information: http://www.efu2014.de

Thomas Möltgen, Cologne