Teenage Kicks

For the first time ever, the European Economic and Social Committee decided to organise a simulated plenary session for over 100 children from secondary schools from across the European Union. The project, entitled ‘Your Europe, Your Say’, was designed to allow pupils to find out how decisions are taken at the EU level, how the opinions of the EESC are formulated and to teach them about the art of compromise. Nine hundred schools applied to take part in the event. Out of these, 27 schools were chosen at random to take part.

The EESC turned to EU-turn to invite the schools to take part, to help it with the preparations, to supervise the participants and to organise three days of cultural activities. In particular, we organised a visit to the European Parliament, a welcome evening with a quiz, an evening at the Belgian Comic Strip Centre and a guided visit of Brussels.

The sudden closure of airspaces because of the cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland disrupted the event considerably. But, as soon as the closure of airports, rerouting of plans and flight cancellations were announced, EU-turn set up an information unit and did everything it could to help the EESC reorganise trips and accommodation as well as manage difficulties such as delayed arrivals.

Despite this unexpected turn of events, we were able to run the whole of the programme and the 110 students and teachers present all expressed their satisfaction at how well the project was run, at how efficiently the crisis was managed and at how openly information was communicated from beginning to end.