European Confederation of Youth Clubs – General Assembly 2020 in Cyprus
Between the 14-15th of February 2020, the ECYC General Assembly was held in Larnaca, Cyprus, hosted by Cyprus Youth Clubs Organisation (KOKEN). Participants from 14 members organisations gathered to elect the new Bureau for the next 2 years and discuss important matters about the network.
The European Confederation of Youth Clubs (ECYC) is an international non-profit organisation whose aim is to advocate the benefits of youth work and to develop networking and collaboration among its member organisations (MOs), thus supporting youth clubs and other forms of neighborhood youth work across Europe. The vision of ECYC is to use open youth work and non-formal education to provide young people with the skills and knowledge to make their own informed decisions, to promote democratic and civil society and to encourage young people to be actively involved in their communities. More specifically, ECYC serves the purposes of promoting young people’s active engagement and their intercultural and non-formal learning in their communities while facilitating and promoting the exchange and the sharing of knowledge and information with the members, among members, among youth organisations and promoting the general contribution brought to society by nongovernmental youth organisations.
The hosting organisation, KOKEN, supervises and guides 80 Youth Clubs with about 8000 individuals. The main aim of KOKEN is to offer opportunities to young Cypriots to develop their skills and attitudes and to promote active participation in local, national and international level. KOKEN supports permanent and periodic activities of the youth clubs in the following fields: sports, culture, non-formal education, European projects, health prevention, human rights, environment and volunteering.
KOKEN was represented by Board President Kostas Kosta and EU programmes officer Ivy Miltiadou, who presented the organisation’s strategy and activities for 2020, on national and European level. KOKEN has been one of the MOs, with constant and strong representation to ECYC, for the past 10 years, with Paraskevi Christou being part of the bureau and served as treasurer during her last mandates.
On the 15th of February 2020, Ivy Miliadou has been elected to the ECYC Bureau, as treasurer, with her mandate to begin in June 2020. Moreover, the new president is Ioana Surubaru (RYNGOF), Vice presidents: Diana Yeghiazaryan (FYCA), Robert Nesirky (YouthWork Ireland), Kayleigh Wainwright (UK Youth).
The participants coming from 14 member organisations of ECYC, during their stay in Cyprus, had the opportunity to visit KEPLI of the Cyprus Youth Board, in Larnaca. A discussion took place about young people having such spaces to get informed, educated about several opportunities and options, as well as counselling and well-being. In addition, participants visited Makerspace in Larnaca, where they had a tour of the place and interacted with some of the tools and machinery, such as Visual Reality activitities!
On this note, we would like to thank Cyprus Youth Board for their hospitality at Makerspace and KEPLI.
