See. Act. Change. #4

SEPTEMBER 12, 2016

SEE.ACT.CHANGE.

SEE. ACT. CHANGE. LOCAL VISITS 
 GERMANY AND BELGIUM

SOUP KITCHEN MINISTRY IN SAMARA, RUSSIA

TARLAMVAR PROJECT TURKEY

LIFE IN POSTCOMMUNIST ROMANIA

BREAK THE CHAINS OF POVERTY

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EYCE CAMPAIGN: BREAK THE CHAINS OF POVERTY In this issue of See. Act. Change.

BREAK THE CHAINS CAMPAIGN. MAGAZINE EDITORIAL. Dear friends, we are glad to announce the first issue of our online magazine for 2016. This issue is truly an international one, we are excited to share stories from Russia, Turkey, Romania and Belgium. The fact that we were able to consolidate articles from different countries is also a positive sign of connectedness and cooperation of people even when the governmental tensions are growing.

These stories describe the whole range of ways people are engaged with poverty - on political level, day-to-day life, weekly ministries and a long-term agricultural project.

Taking advantage of the editorial page, we would like to share that our three-year campaign “Break the Chain of Poverty” is slowly coming to end, and there have already been changes in the Brussels office. Manon Shilder, a volunteer who was so actively engaged in the work of the Council this year, has left the place to Pedro De Grado Nadal. Bye and thank you Manon, welcome Pedro! God Bless!

With warm regards, Your editorial and campaign team

• Local visits Germany and Belgium • Soup kitchen ministry in Samara, Russia • Tarlamvar project, Turkey • Life in post-communist Romania

IMPRINT Published by Ecumenical Youth Council in Europe in the frame-work of the EYCE’s Campaign to Overcome Poverty.

Editing: Manon Schilder, Vendula Pavlikova Proofreading: Lina Leonavičiūtė, Satu Koikkalainen Layout: Maxim Kvyatkovskiy Copyright: © Photos: EYCE and respective contributors © Design: EYCE !2

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Local visits. Brussels, Belgium 23-25 MAY

The Campaign Coordination Team (CCT) had its first local visit of 2016 in Brussels, Belgium, from the 23rd till the 25th of May. Vendula Pavlikova, Satu Koikkalainen and Manon Schilder took part in it.

Being in Brussels was the opportunity to learn more about the work of European institutions in the field of fighting poverty.

This fight is apparently important for the European Union (EU), as it is part of the EU’s growth strategy, Europe 2020, established in 2010. Indeed, fighting poverty and social exclusion is one of the five targets that the European Commission (EC) wants to reach, through a reduction of “20 million people in or at risk of poverty and social exclusion”.

In order to discuss about this issue, we met different Member of European Parliament (MEP) and their assistants.

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A small description of EU institutions and their different roles European Council:

composed of all the heads of the state government of EU countries, European Commission President, High Representative for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy Role: Defines the general political direction and priorities of the European Union European Commission

Composed of a team or 'College' of Commissioners, 1 from each EU country Role: Promotes the general interest of the EU by proposing and enforcing legislation as well as by implementing policies and the EU budget Council of European Union/of the Ministers (often called “the Council”)

Composed of the “Government ministers from each EU country” Role: Voice of EU member governments, adopting EU laws and coordinating EU policies European Parliament

Composed of 751 MEPs Role: Directly-elected EU body with legislative, supervisory, and budgetary responsibilities

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ON MAY 23, MONDAY, we met Mrs Michaela Farenzenova, the assistant of the MEP Jana ŽITŇANSKÁ, who comes from Slovakia, and who belongs to the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR). Mrs ŽITŇANSKÁ has worked in cooperation with other MEP, on a report on reducing inequalities with a special focus on child poverty, adopted by the European Parliament (EP). The resolution has been presented to the Commission, but this latter underlines that “it is unlikely that there will be a qualified majority for this in the Council”. So even if the EP has voted this resolution, the Member States don’t have to respect it. It will be a long term effort, by pushing enough until MEP can succeed. Mrs ŽITŇANSKÁ is working very close from the Member States, in order to achieve this change.

Jana ŽITŇANSKÁ is the ViceChair of the Committee on Women’s rights and Gender equality. She is a member of the Committee on Employment and social affairs, of the delegation for relations with the Maghreb countries and the Arab Maghreb Union and of the delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean.

SEE.ACT.CHANGE.

She is working a lot with disabled children. She supports a better education, which would be more inclusive. In order to explain better the European Funds and how they can be used, she wrote a Manual for Youth funds, with disabled children as a target group.

The educational system in Slovakia is not inclusive. Indeed, children with disabilities are in special schools, even if their parents would like to subscribe them into mainstream schools. However, these latter don’t have the structure, the tools or enough people to welcome them. Mrs ŽITŇANSKÁ is supporting a lot so that European funds in Slovakia are invested in education to fill the basic needs. As a MEP, she tries to coordinate the Slovakian agenda with the European agenda.

To sum up, the role of the MEP for Mrs ŽITŇANSKÁ is not to be only active at the European Parliament but as well on the Member States’ level, by bringing the European agenda to the Member States, and explaining what are the good things, the added value of EU, and its influence on the lives in Slovakia.

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Sylvie GOULARD is a Member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON), of the Special Committee on Tax Rulings and Other Measures Similar in Nature or Effect (TAXE 2) and of the delegation for relations with the United

Then we met with the MEP Sylvie GOULARD and her assistant, Heather BAILEY. Poverty intergroup has existed since 1980. Since her election in 2009, Mrs GOULARD has been a member of the intergroup. She has been the Chairperson since 2013. Silvia COSTA, from Socialists and Democrats group (S&D), Jean LAMBERT from the Greens/ALE group and Verónica OPE FONTAGNÉ from European People’s Party (EPP) are the ViceChairpersons. Through this organization, the four big political groups are represented in the board. Nevertheless, working for this intergroup is not an easy task, as it is not the priority of everyone: it is always a battle. Even if it is a really tough and hard problem, it is an important issue.

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As a member of the ECON committee, Mrs GOULARD considers that social policy should not be a need because economic policy should be implemented. The fight against poverty has to start at the very beginning, in order to eradicate it from the beginning. Europe 2020 strategy is a disaster, poverty has been increased.

There is a long, serious and deep crisis happening now in Europe. The States’ economies are still fragile but there are going to the right direction. There is no legislative obligation to fight against poverty, so it has to be based more on cooperation, and put it as a main priority at the European level. For that, Mrs GOULARD is in contact with a lot of people, she is participating to public debates, and she is putting pressure on everybody.

Functioning of an Intergroup: “Intergroups can be formed by Members from any political group and any committee, with a view to holding informal exchanges of views on particular subjects and promoting contact between Members and civil society. The members of the intergroups meet on Thursday morning during the week of the plenary session in Strasbourg. They are formed at the beginning of the mandates of the MEP” !6

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Meeting Salvation Army representative LOCAL VISITS 2O16 ON TUESDAY MORNING, the CCT met with Lénaïc ESTIEVENART, who is in charge of the Youth service at the Salvation Army in Brussels. He did a presentation on the youth poverty in Belgium.

In Belgium, the rate of childhood poverty has increased. In Brussels, 40% of children are growing up in poverty, 25% in Wallonie (the French-speaking part) and 10% in Flanders (Dutch-speaking part).

22% of youth aged from 16 till 24 years are living with an income under the poverty threshold. 65% of youth think they will not have a better life than their parents’, the first time in History. The risk of poverty is 20,4% for youth aged between 16 and 24 years old and 17,9% for those aged between 0 and 15 years old. It is important to notice that the rate of subjective poverty is 24,1%.

There are 5 million of NEET’s (Not in Education, Employment or Training) in Europe. 1 youth on 5 is unemployed in Belgium. Some factors are as well taking into consideration: for example, 70% of youth descendant from migrant have more risks than “national” people to fall into poverty.

The problem in Belgium is the functioning of their political system; indeed, there are six different governments this country, so it is not really clear who is in charge of homeless people or education. There are a lot of social institutions in Brussels, more than 100 services dedicated to children, women, alcoholism…

After this discussion, the CCT took part to the weekly soup kitchen. The Salvation Army is helped by the association “Serve the City in Brussels”. To describe the current situation: two years ago, they were hosting eight people, now they have around forty.

READ MORE ON THE LOCAL VISIT ON PAGE 11 !7

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Local visit, Germany 17-19 JUNE During the local visits, the Campaign Coordination Team (CCT) participated at the Landesjugendforum which took place in Bad Hersfeld, Germany. Satu Koikkalainen and Manon Schilder took part in it. The event gathered young people aged from 14 to 18 years old, from all around the region around Kassel.

EYCE had the opportunity to organise one workshop of 2.30h on the theme of the Campaign. After a brief introduction on EYCE, the participants did the game “One step forward”. Every participant had an identity of a person, who could have economic, social, family problems, or not. Once they learnt about their identity, they lined up. Manon asked questions about their situation or event, and all the time they could answer “yes”, they should take a step forward. At the end, they had to take note of their final positions. Then, the participants and the CCT had a discussion about the feelings they had during this game, especially for the ones who were the first and the ones who were the last. Some felt disturbed to see these differences and bad on their situations. The discussion talked about as well about the reality of this game and how youth could act to fight against poverty. The main actor mentioned in this fight is the State.

The role of the person itself was asked, if they were doing everything in their power to improve their situation, or if it is a societal problem.

To nourish the discussion, the participants had to draw the shape of a poor person, to whom they would imagine the identity and their story. Among the different identities, several features were present several times, such as the lack of money, so poor people can’t go on holidays, have a social life (go out for a drink, to cinema) have a balanced meals, buy new clothes. It can be an obstacle to education. They may not have a house to sleep and to stay. Poor people are left out because of all these problems. They may not have social contacts that could help them to solve their situation. Poverty may be linked as well with other problems, such as alcoholism, drugs …

During the afternoon, a workshop café was organised, so the CCT could introduce EYCE and its activities during 1.30 hour.

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Give the helping hand

MINISTRY IN SAMARA, RUSSIA

“Give the helping hand” is the name of a program that started in Samara United Methodist Church three years ago.

Samara is a city on the Volga with 1.2 Mln «Give the helping hand» is a soup kitchen people in the European part of Russia, ministry. The ministry was organized as a 1000 South-East from Moscow. response to several issues. For example, the church is situated in a district with adverse influences, where there are dysfunctional families, disabled and sick people, people with dependencies, recently released from prisons, families where children are not cared for.

Another reason is awareness raising: in Samara there is a negative perception of protestant churches combined with mistrust. There are biases and stereotypes, people are incredulous and are very cautious. !9

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The third reason – is a unique opportunity to preach the Good News. There are various means serving the aim: films, music, personal talks and counseling. The fourth reason is the chance to help those who needs to go through rehabilitation and join one of the rehabilitation centers.

Thanks to the project “Give the helping hand” many people for the first time got to know a protestant church, they met in person ministers and community members. People

Nowadays the program is a well-functioning ministry, and it is particularly important, that the parish are taking part in it. People cook the food in turns, donate, and serve the others by giving away food and helping the guests. It was learnt that many are in need of clothes, particularly during the winter months. We started to collect clothes and give it away to people.

The ministry gave our community a new purpose and united the people. We spend a lot of time and resources on the ministry, but we also receive much. We feel God's blessings which He gives through the ministry.

Olga Ganina, pastor of Samara UMC !1 0

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ร atalรงam Village, Adana, TURKEY

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THE TARLAMVAR PROJECT An agricultural enterprise which prevents villagers from emigration by providing them employment opportunities.

This project contributes to environmental sustainability and helps urban people to satisfy their need for natural environment as well. It is applied in Turkey, city of Adana, ร atalรงam Village. The Tarlamvar Project consists of 2 parts:

a) Social part

b) Marketing part

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SOCIAL PART

The essence of the project: we rent empty fields from villagers. Then we test the soil, analyze results and find the most suitable breed of tree to grow there. This part of the project is done in cooperation with Maraş Sütçü İmam University (which is famous for its agricultural studies).

After we plant trees, we employ villagers on the fields and train them (especially economically poor ones who are on the verge of moving to big cities).

Unfortunately, it is really hard for us to find a family which would be interested as the village, we apply our project on, consists of mostly older people. Since younger ones have already immigrated to big cities hoping to find some job there.

It took some time for us to convince Mr. Mehmet’s family to stay at home town. We succeeded to do it by providing them with regular income.

Till now we have already planted 25 decars. For every 25 decars we plan to employ one more family. Moreover, since the fields we rent are empty, by planting trees we are make the surroundings greener.

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MARKETING PART Project’s marketing part indicates us it’s capacity to deliver money and stay self-sustainable.What is more, during the project we’ve developed a new way to market agricultural products. Our target group includes people who live in big cities.

For example, if you ask me- what you do? I would answer- we make people tree owners. We plant walnut trees on behalf of them. For following 15 years, we look after those trees, collect their nuts and send half of the fruits to the tree owners (we send only one half, the other half provides our project selfsustainable). Tree owners as well have the chance to visit the village and collect the goods from their own trees themselves.

Each time we plant a tree we inform the owner by sending him a photo of the tree. People’s health is another very important issue for us. Therefore, we use only organic techniques to grow the plants. Right now we plant mostly walnut. After we plant at least 500 trees, we would like to apply our project on different regions of Turkey (especially ones with high emigration rates). And try to plant different breeds of plants there.

LEARN MORE: www.tarlamvar.com

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Struggling for life in post-communist Romania The communist era which gripped Eastern Europe for over 40 years in the aftermath of the Second World War, blocking the progress and development which blossomed in the west of Europe, was bad. Everybody knows that. So why is it that there are some Romania people who are in fact nostalgic for the communist period? Why would you want to go back to a time like that?

Today, Romania is a shockingly poor country. The Rural Poverty Portal shows poverty levels across the whole of Romania rising through the late 90's from 20 per cent in 1996 to 35 per cent in 2000.

This poverty is particularly focused in rural populations.

According to figures published by The World Bank, Romania has the highest incidence of rural poverty ( o v e r 7 0 % ) .

T h e R u r a l P o v e r t y Portal blames the poverty in Romania, and especially poverty in rural Romanian populations on the challenging economic and social transitions which occurred after the collapse of communism. And these are just the facts and figures. The desperate poverty in which many hundreds of thousands of people in Romania live is ever evident.

From the incomplete houses in which people call their homes, to the children begging on the streets, the hardships that many of the people who call Romania their home face in their day to day battle for survival are inescapable.

One of the most heart breaking experiences for me during the 8 months I have been living in Romania, was helping in a shelter for street children. The shelter was open during the winter months, and the children were given time to play, a hot meal, a shower and a bed for the night.

Without the work of this organisation, and the dedication of their local and European volunteers, these children would have been sleeping on the streets, cold and hungry, trapped in an unbreakable cycle of poverty.

As 15 year olds coloured in pictures with the concentration and dedication expected from children half their age, I cuddled a perfect, innocent 6 month old baby and was told, without emotion, that she would become a prostitute. As her big wide eyes smiled up at me while I rocked her in my arms, I wanted with all my heart not to believe this, and yet, the reality of the downward spiral of hardships into which this girl had been born is hard to deny. !1 5

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Faced with these tough social and economic situations, it is not hard to see why, as memories of the communist era fade into the history books; they are being brushed with the nostalgic rose tinted glow of a hazy memory. One student I work with told me that life was much better back then, because everyone had a job and everyone had a house. With such crippling poverty gripping Romania's rural communities, it is easy to see why people might be nostalgic for a time when at least everyone had an income and a roof over their heads.

Certainly life during the communist time in Romania was not all bad, and the country is clearly struggling to adapt and progress in the modern world.

Yet, perhaps back into history is not the way to be looking. As often as my heart is broken by the awful situations I see people living in, my heart is also filled with hope by the resilience and determination of Romania's youth.

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On the portal for the European Voluntary Service (a European wide volunteering scheme in which I am participating this year) are listed nearly 200 projects in Romania.

These projects represent Romanian people who work with young people from across Europe, to improve people's living conditions. With the help and support of local Romanian youth volunteers they are dedicated and committed to making a change in their country.

Some projects fight poverty directly, helping on the front lines, giving food and shelter to those most in need.

Others help the problem indirectly, though education, and inspiring Romanian people to achieve more than ever would have been possible under the communist regime. So please Romania, don't go back just yet.

Give progression a little more time to work.

It might take a while, but I have seen the proof that there are young people dedicated to improving the country, and I believe that there is still hope.

Clare Blanchard Volunteer at AIST (American international school of Transylvania) !1 6

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European Youth Forum LOCAL VISITS 2O16 ON MAY 24th, TUESDAY, the CCT met with

Sarah FARNDALE, the Communication coordinator, and Marianna GEORGALLIS, the Policy and Advocacy coordinator, from the European Youth Forum (YFJ) on Tuesday afternoon. Mrs FARNDALE presented the YFJ. Being young offers great opportunities but they don’t have access to their rights. YFJ is a platform organisation created in 1996, and composed of 100 youth organisations, which represent more than ten of thousands of youth. It can be National Youth Council or International NonGovernmental Youth Organisations. YFJ wants to be the voice of young people in Europe. They have three main goals on which they are working on: •

Greater Youth participation (political side, like voting, volunteering, but as well more informal participation)

•

Make youth organisations stronger through funds: they are doing lobbying at the European institutions, advocate youth work, etc.)

•

Increased youth autonomy and inclusion

YFJ is working to become an agenda setter on youth affairs, empower their Member Organisations, and enforce the rights based approach.

Some of the positions defended by YFJ and actions they are organising: ¬ Youth participation: voting at 16: it would be a way to engaged youth longer and deeper, and has been recommended by the European Parliament in Nov. 2015. ¬ The European Youth Capital: the countries which can apply are the one belonging to the Council of Europe. The goal is to reward actions on local level and not the country. ¬

Volunteering

¬ The Structured Dialogue: “a process enabling young people to be involved in the shaping of policies that affect them, through continuous cooperation among youth representatives and decisionmakers.” They organize a giant consultation with the European Commission, the European council, and the presidents of youth organisations.

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LOCAL VISITS, Belgium LOCAL VISITS 2016 Brando BENIFEI is a Member of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL) and of the Delegation to the EU-Kazakhstan, EU-Kyrgyzstan, EU-Uzbekistan and EU-Tajikistan Parliamentary Cooperation Committees and for relations with Turkmenistan and Mongolia. He is a member of the Intergroup Extreme Poverty and Human rights and of the Intergroup on youth issues. He wrote an own-initiative procedure for a report on Refugees: social inclusion and integration into the labour market.

On the 25th of May the group met with Brando BENIFEI, an Italian S&D MEP. His role as a MEP is trying to push the EC poverty indicators as priority targets. There is a lot of awareness in EMPL Committee, as well as in the centre right parties. Their aim is to avoid the phenomenon of working poor to grow. In the past, not having a work was an eventual factor of the poverty. Nowadays, the welfare system based on family support is falling. The working poor are increasing. Slovakia is the next country which will have the Presidency of the Council of EU, and it is focused a lot on social and unemployment issues, even if it is one country which has the lower number of poor people.

It is important to stress that many people are a little bit above the line of the poverty, but they are still poor. This is a crucial issue.

Mr BENIFEI is fighting for the refugees, and for raising the ceiling of the ESF. Indeed, for the first time in EU history, the Cohesion Policy gets less money than the years before. The MEP wants to raise it back to 25% as it was in the past. The actual context of the economic crisis and the new phenomenon of human crisis with the refugees, involve more support from social policies. Indeed, the NGOs, the local policies need to be supported. With the review of the Multiannual Financial Framework, the EP is putting pressure on the EC to invest more money on social projects. The EU is facing new challenges such as policy crisis. It has no right recipes to tackle the humanitarian crisis, as it was not prepared even if it knew it. The EU has been taken by surprise. However, to avoid poverty, social dumping, or other social issues, EU needs more resources.

The Youth guarantee has improved the situation. However some Member States don’t use it efficiently because they don’t have the structures (employees, institutions…). The recovery after the economic crisis is still weak, so they need structures to fill youth vacancies.

Vendula Pavlikova

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SEE. ACT. CHANGE. BREAK THE CHAINS CAMPAIGN

IMPRINT Published by Ecumenical Youth Council in Europe in the frame-work of the EYCE’s Campaign to Overcome Poverty.

Editing: Manon Schilder, Vendula Pavlikova Proofreading: Lina Leonavičiūtė, Satu Koikkalainen Layout: Maxim Kvyatkovskiy Copyright: © Photos: EYCE and respective contributors © Design: EYCE

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