02-09 July 2001 Eindhoven,THE NETHERLANDS

The organizer was Jongerenbond - an interest pressure group of, for and from young people in the age of 14 to 25 years old. The exchange was to ask the questions:

• Does the increasing social and cultural differences mean a loss of basis for collective attendance of interests.
• What does the social en cultural diversity mean to the position of youngsters and the way youth organizations need to deal with it.
• What does the growth of cultural and ethnic minorities mean and what consequences will it have for youth organizations.
• Have girls passed the process of emancipation? Contemporary emancipator girls work: in what way does a youth organisation need to react to the decreasing attention to emancipator developments.
• Are young people sensitive to idealism or not?
• What's the position of youth organisations, like the Jongerenbond, according to the trend of individualism

Divers Dutch youth groups are connected in some kind of a co-operative. Fore instance about environmental topics or youth policy. Now that the European Union is becoming more and more influential in national policies we think that cooperation between youth organisations on a European level is even more important. With this international youth exchange we would like to initiate this cooperation.

Target groups:

• European youth groups (preferably E.U.) age 14 to 25.

Alms:

1. Exchange of and learning from each others (working) methods, activities and social situation.
2. Learning how to place our questions in international perspective
3. Initiate the development of vision on the position of youngsters in international perspective
4. Initiating cooperation on relevant topics.

 The exchange took place in the first week of July. We were about 30 people. We had chosen topics who deal specifically with the position of youngsters.

 The exchange programme was about the following themes and activities:

1. "Getting acquainted"
    Who are we? What do we do? Relaxing programme and talking through the arrangements.
2. 
    "Work and education"
    In Eindhoven there are several students in an exchange programme. This programme takes care of the working experience and education of foreign students. We met these students and talked to them about this programme. We also went into the following questions: - How far is it a benefit to the position of youngsters to get its education in another country? What are reasons for youngsters to get their education elsewhere?
    
3. "Youth participation and (local) youth policy"
   What's the influence of young people on youth policy? What methods a country or municipality develops to attack youth problems? In the Netherlands Youth participation is a method to give youngsters an opportunity to commend on the youth policy and to advise the town council.
   There was a pilot-project in Eindhoven which takes care of the interest of youngsters in a part of Eindhoven. We met the youngsters of this Youth council Tongelre and talked with them about a European Youth council.
    
4. "Contemporary emancipation methods"
   In the Netherlands, the attention to have a separate emancipator policy has been decreased, or even disappeared, for several years. The position of women has always been world widely discussed. There are already several international treaties signed by a lot of governments.
   The girls group of the Jongerenbond discussed these treaties in their live radio programme. We shared the experience of foreign girls and boys about how we live together, what our future dreams are and if there's discrimination towards women in our countries. We also heard about different methods and activities for girls.
    
5. "Cultural diversity"
   In the Netherlands the “integration of minorities” is a big issue. Politics make people believe that the refugees are a big problem for the Dutch society. Do youngsters think it's a problem and who needs to take the initiative to support integration? What does integration mean?
   We visited programmes for young refugees in Eindhoven. The Jongerenbond organized a “rap and R&B-workshop”. By this all guests expressed their feelings about cultural diversity, being a refugee, hospitality towards "strangers", etc.
   Afterwards there was a presentation of the CD from the Dutch project "cultural experience".
    
6. "Racism, discrimination and extreme right-winged organizations"
    We can probably al remember the election of the FPO in Austria, Vlaams Blok in Belgium, the war in Yugoslavia etc. In the Netherlands was felt that racism, hatred towards refugees/ foreigners is growing. It was also obvious that it is not a problem of the Netherlands alone and that (pro-white) movements against refugees organize themselves internationally. To have an answer and to solve and talk about these intolerant ideas we needed to work together. Dutch antidiscrimination and antifascism organizations were invited.