EYP Austria

The European Youth Parliament (EYP) is a non-governmental organisation consisting of national committees and a central office (which is situated in Oxford, UK). The EYP has ever since 1987 organised conferences for young people from all over Europe and brought together tens of thousands of pupils and students from all corners of Europe.

EYP sees its major goals in promoting democracy, education, language skills and a European idea in Europe's youth and tries to achiev this goal by means of international conferences, regional fora or national events.

What makes the EYP so unique is its general approach: rather than "teaching" the young people, EYP gives them as much freedom as they need to work at an EYP session. The students "get to know" rather than learn. They discover and find out.

EYP is based on several principals: understanding, respecting other people and their opinions, co-operating, compromising and (maybe most important): making new friends.

Languages

The students learn how to communicate in foreign languages (and face it, language education in schools cannot rival the experience of truly having to talk to somebody from another country), and they find out, that there is more to English and French (and all the other languages in the world) that they learn at home. Students learn to understand different languages and their accents and are thus better prepared to communicate in a different language, since they only hear standard-english or standard-french (or italian, russian, etc.) in schools. After ten days of communicating in English with Greeks, Finns, Belarussians and Scots, students know, that most people in Europe speak English, but than almost none of them speak as their language tapes in school do.

Communication

Communication means more than languages. To communicate properly means to learn how to listen, how to take on an argument, how to present statements and how to debate. Students at an EYP session learn, that interrupting people makes work harder, and that the best way to finish a job is to stick to a strict debating culture, which is not based upon raising hands and authority, but upon shared values, equality and co-operation.

Co-operation

To co-operate means to be able to work with people. EYP promotes the ability in young people to become part of a group aiming at the same goal. Students learn how to put their differences aside for the benefit of others, of all and of the group and the project they are working on (whether it is writing a resolution, finishing a newspaper or preparing for a presentation).

Compromising

Students at EYP sessions come from all over Europe. And only at the sessions do they discover, that sometimes opinions, which are widespread in their home countries and which seem obvious to them, are not as spread and obvious in other countries. Students from Austria discover, that many young people in Europe are in favour of nuclear energy. And this is what makes EYP interesting. The students learn, that in order to work together, they have to step aside at some points and learn how to compromise, whether it is when dealing with nuclear power, debating whale-hunting with Norwegians or over-fishing with delegates from Spain.

Making friends

Probably the most important part of EYP is making friends, making new friends from all over Europe. After EYP, the map of Europe (or sometimes even the world) is not only a geographical object. It is an address book of new friends made in a foreign city.

For more information on EYP's goals and means and an article on EYP and democracy, click here to be directed to the download section or click "eyp austria -> aims".