Three YPARD Europe delegates (Hana Voca YPARD Kosovo country representative, Anna Hovhannisyan member of YPARD Armenia working team and Seher Gümü? YPARD Turkey country representative) are heading to the 28th international leadership workshop for rural youth that will be held in Herrsching, Germany from the 9th to 22nd of August 2017.
The workshop is organized every other year by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture with the main objective to equip participants with the skills to help young people in rural areas to improve their living conditions. These youth work leaders will gain qualifications for their local, regional and supra-regional tasks with new, modern contents and methods. They will be inspired to take on responsibility for the sustainable development in their region and learn to plan, organize and conduct their own activities and campaigns to suit their requirements. Through the international exchange of experiences and build-up of a network of experts during the workshop, the participants will be given important impulses for rural youth work in their home countries. In this way, experiences and knowledge can be shared even after the workshop has ended.
At the event, they will share their visions as rural youth leaders and will shed light on the mission and vision of YPARD to all participants present through a presentation that will not only portray the activities of YPARD Europe but will also show the work that YPARD is doing on a global scale. These participants are attending the event with a mindset of improving their skills as youth leaders and YPARD country representatives.
Background-The international workshop
Every other year, the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture organizes the International Leadership Workshop for Rural Youth. It has been taking place for over fifty years in Herrsching on Lake Ammersee in southern Germany.
The desire expressed by many European rural youth leaders in the 1950s to build up a permanent training centre for the mutual exchange of experiences and ideas came from a meeting of the representatives of the FAO (UN Food and Agriculture Organisation), UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) and WAY (World Assembly of Youth) on 22 July 1960 in Paris. There, Germany declared its willingness to establish an International Workshop for Rural Youth Work.
Leaders from all over the world were to be given many different forms of support and provided with ideas for the further development and strengthening of rural youth work.
Ever since the first event in 1962, all international seminars have been conducted at the House of Bavarian Agriculture in Herrsching (Lake Ammersee) under the patronage of the FAO. Over 1900 participants from roughly 150 countries have attended the 27 international workshops that have been held to date.
Important inspiration and concrete ideas for improving rural youth work have been implemented all over the world in the past decades.
Uniquely different in conceptualization and organization, this workshop enjoys an excellent reputation in the rural youth movements of all continents. In 2017, interested rural youth work leaders are being invited to Herrsching for the 28th International Workshop.
Stay tuned to hear more from our fellow YPARDians on their participation at this great event.
Picture credits: 1) YPARD, 2) Participants 2015. © BLE