Be mdg

Un millennium development goalS
A CHALLENGE FOR TODAY’S YOUTH?

UN MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
A CHALLENGE FOR TODAY’S YOUTH?
- PART OF -
AEGEE-Europe Flagship Project 2010-2011
BEYOND EUROPE
PERSPECTIVES FOR TOMORROW’S WORLD
Published by:
AEGEE-Europe 2009-2011
Brussels, Belgium
www.aegee.org
Printing:
ACCO cvba Drukkerij
Herent, Belgium
Cover image: Reflexion and Action
by Debreuve, Thierry
from United Nations ‘We can end poverty’ campaign
UNRIC ‘Unleash your creativity’ competition
This publication is made possible with support from the European
Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and
the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use of the informa-tion
contained therein
This publication is printed on
Chlorine-free recyled paper
©

Introduction Every Day Life
There is a direct link between small
things we do in our everyday life and
the big challenges of the develop-ing
world. In an increasingly inter-connected
world our consumption
patterns have serious repercussion
for those in need. Europeans throw
away on average 50% of the food
they buy, most of it from the inter-national
market, and replace their
mobile phones on average every 18
months, unaware of the extent to
which this production chain is non-transparent
and has adverse effects
in mineral producing countries. If
Europeans would only become a lit-tle
bit more frugal in their everyday
habits, without undermining their
living standards, this would help the
lives of millions in the world.
Educate
Development is not only about
aid and technical solutions, devel-opment
is first of all about minds.
Public opinion in Europe often fails
to see that economic divergence
between rich and poor countries in
the world is at the heart of problems
like international migration, conflict
and terrorism. For our governments
to remain committed to their prom-ise
to achieve the MDGs, especially
at times of economic turmoil and
austerity measures, it is necessary
that you inform people around you
about how worldwide poverty and
economic divergence will under-mine
the future of our world.
Advocate
Youth can play a decisive role in influ-encing
decision-making and the alloca-tion
of public or private resources. You
can write to your university and ask to
establish contacts and exchanges with
universities and schools in the develop-ing
world, you can contact companies
in your countries to fund your social
projects. You can organise a campaign
to raise public awareness on specific
issues, you can sign petitions, you can
take part to public consultations issued
by institutions in your country.
Volunteer
Volunteering is an inestimable resource
for development. Every year over thou-sands
and thousands of young volun-teers
in their local communities and
around the world provide relief in hu-manitarian
operations, support devel-opment
programmes, help people with
disabilities, or teach foreign languages.
To inaugurate 2011 as the European
Year of Volunteering, AEGEE now has
set up a Volunteering Network. You can
join in and volunteer in India, South
Africa, or anywhere in the world.
Partnership
Young people are the masters of
modern communication technology.
Thousands of kilometres of distance are
no longer an insurmountable barrier to-day
that you can skype, tag, email, poke
your friends in India, South Africa or
Europe almost at any time. You can use
your “power of interconnectedness”
to change this world for the better.
Keep in touch with young people
from other continents, work togeth-er,
discuss the challenges of the
MDGs, find ways of tackling them,
design a project and apply for fund-ing
in partnership with your friends
from Europe, India and South Africa.
This is our global partnership for
development.
Build Your Own Project
Youth are open-minded, mobile
and innovative. Youth are creative
in problem solving and solution
finding. Youth are good multipliers,
they adapt fast to new technology
and new means of communication.
When the environment offers them
a chance, youth reap the benefits of
globalisation and build transnation-al
networks. It is only recently that
development agencies have started
exploring the rationale for working
with the youth and started seeing
young people not just as targets of
development policy, but as lead-ers
and responsible stakeholders.
We advocate for the recognition of
youth in partner countries as lead-ers
and initiators of development in
their full right and we envisage the
establishment of development fund-ing
schemes for youth-led projects.
Contents
Introduction
Foreword 2
Executive Summary 3
Introduction to the Booklet 4
Part One - What We Have Done
The Project 6
The Millennium Development Goals 8
Objectives 1. Awareness 12
Objectives 2. Participation 14
Objectives 3. Multiplication 16
Objectives 4. Cultural Dialogue 18
Activities Preparatory Meeting 20
Activities Case Study Trip India 22
Activities Case Study Trip South Africa 26
Activities Final Conference 30
Visibility 32
Part Two - What We Have Learnt
Fearless Lions 34
About India 36
About South Africa 40
About The Youth 42
About Development 44
Youth Contribution to Development 46
Everyday Life 48
Educate 50
Advocate 52
Volunteer 54
Partnership 56
Build Your Own Project 58
Team
& Acknowledgements
Editor in Chief
Mario Giuseppe Varrenti
Editorial Staff
Sara Rebollo Ramirez,
Gabriela Motroc
Cover Design and Layout
Maurits Korse
Liesje Van Gelder
Kushal Parmal
This publication, The UN Development Goals - A Challenge for
Today’s Youth? is published by the Beyond Europe Flagship proj-ect
of AEGEE-Europe and has a circulation of 2.000 copies.
© AEGEE-Europe 2011
Colophon
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60
Dear reader, Executive SuThme Somlutiona is rin yOur Hands
- Manos Valasis
AEGEE, the European Students’ Forum,
has striven for equality, human rights
and peace in Europe for more than 25
years. Being the biggest interdisciplinary
student organisation in Europe, being
idealists, we decided to look at the big-ger
picture and focus on the rest of the
world and especially on the Millennium
Development Goals.
It is a timely moment to put global challenges and the
Millennium Development Goals at the centre of our activi-ties
in 2010/11. Ten years have passed since the Millennium
Declaration, 5 years still lay ahead of us to achieve the MDGs,
however progress is not always linear and often two steps for-ward
are accompanied by one step backward – a fact we also
had to come to terms with.
We believe that youth has to be part of the process. Putting
youth contributions to the achievement of the Millennium
Development Goals at the heart of this project was not just an
idea – it is also an obligation if we want to consider ourselves
as responsible European students and active citizens in an in-creasingly
interdependent world.
Dialogue, mutual understanding and empathy are key to
global youth cooperation. They also stood at the heart of our
approach to understand the issues the world is facing in the
21st century. After all young people will be among those af-fected
the most by today’s and future challenges. Rising up to
the task is what students in Europe and worldwide need to do
– this project can therefore just be regarded as one small step
for a better future, but a big step for AEGEE.
Manos Valasis
President
AEGEE-Europe
Introduction 3

Introduction
Global inequality is larger than the inequal-ity
found in any single country. Today, the
top 5% of individuals in the world receive
about 1/3 of total world income, the 5%
bottom only 0.2 %. The richest people earn
in about 48 hours as much as the poorest
people earn in a year [1] . But what does this
mean in concrete terms?
As an example, let’s look at the paradoxical
different effects across the world of the eco-nomic
crisis on an individual’s food intake.
The economic crisis hits everywhere, no
doubt, but in a different way. Being poorer
in Europe means getting fatter, being poor-er
in a developing country means hunger
and starvation. Why so? Being poorer in
Europe means more unhealthy and cheap
food, in times of economic crisis in fact,
obesity rates are on the rise over here. By
contrast, in the developing world, econom-ic
crisis means higher food prices, and thus
widespread hunger and starvation.
Interconnectedness means that there is a
direct link between little things we do ev-eryday
and the big challenges of the de-veloping
world. The minerals contained in
our mobile phones and laptop computers
come from the developing world. The sugar
we pour in our morning tea or coffee for in-stance,
as well as the tea and coffee them-selves,
come from the develop-ing
world too, and so does much
of the food served on our tables,
especially fruit and vegetables.
Such interconnectedness means
opportunities but also threats
for the poorest on our planet.
Because of our patterns of con-sumptions
for example, we
Europeans throw away on av-erage
50% of the food we buy,
most of which comes directly
from the world market, and re-place
our mobile phones on
average every 18 months, thus
fuelling a production chain
that starts in the conflict-ridden
mines of Congo and ends up in
the electronic dumps of Lagos.
Inequality and intercon-nectedness
are even more a
reality for young people. The
first is something we have to
struggle against, the second is
something we can turn into a
powerful tool for our struggle.
We have learnt that there are so
many things in the life of a human
being, especially a young one,
that are beyond an individual’s
control and can determine his
or her life forever. Malnutrition
in pregnant mothers affects a
child’s development for ever.
A painfully high number of
children are born with HIV.
Poverty, teenage pregnancy,
and ignorance drive children
out of school. These are some
of the challenges addressed by
the Millennium Development
Goals.
But if young people are victims
of inequality and poverty, at
the same time youth can be
very open-minded, mobile and
innovative, creative in problem
solving and solution finding.
Youth can be good multipliers,
and adapt fast to new technol-ogy
and means of communi-cation.
When the environment
offers them a chance, youth
reap the benefits of globalisa-tion
and build transnational
networks. Thousands of kilo-metres
of distance are no lon-ger
an insurmountable barrier
today that you can skype, tag,
email, poke your friends in
India, South Africa or Europe
almost at any time, and we
can use our “power of inter-connectedness”
to change this
world for the better.
To harness this opportunity,
we have established, at the
micro-level among young
people in Europe, India and
South Africa, a global partner-ship
for development.
For the first time ever in the his-tory
of AEGEE we have looked at
the problems addressed by the
Millennium Development Goals.
For the first time ever in the his-tory
of AEGEE, we have gone
beyond Europe. In June 2009,
we, a group of young people
from Europe, India and South
Africa, joined hands and took
up the challenge of empower-ing
the youth in our countries to
contribute to the achievement
of the Millennium Development
Goals.
This booklet tells the story of
what happened since our part-nership
started. It tells you
about the objectives we set for
ourselves, it tells you what we
have done to achieve them, it
tells you what we have learnt
from this project and what we
are going to do next.
Our world has never been as
unequal and, at the same time,
as interconnected as it is today.
[1] Branko Milanovic, “Global Income Inequality: What It Is And Why It Matters?”,
DESA Working Paper No. 26, ST/ESA/2006/DWP/26, August 2006.
- Mario Giuseppe Varrenti
Mario Giuseppe
Varrenti
Project Coordinator
Content Manager
Beyond Europe
4 BEYOND EUROPE Introduction 5

Part One
The Project
The year 2010
marks the tenth
anniversary of
the Millennium
Declaration and 2010
has also been chosen
by the General
Assembly of the
United Nations as
the International
Year of Youth.
ness of the Millennium Development
Goals.
We were successful in our grant appli-cation
for a project composed of four
activities: a preliminary meeting held
in Brussels in December 2009, two case
study trips to India and South Africa, in
June and September 2010 respectively,
and a final conference in Utrecht, The
Netherlands, in November 2010, to dis-cuss
our findings.
The overall aim of the project is to em-power
young people in Europe, India
and South Africa to contribute to the
achievement of the MDGs. This overall
goal can be specified into four specific
objectives:
• To raise young people’s awareness of
critical global issues and the MDGs;
• To provide young people from Europe,
India and South Africa with knowl-edge
to fight for the achievement of
the MDGs;
• To promote active citizenship and en-courage
young people to get active on
a local level for the achievement of the
MDGs;
• To establish an inter-cultural dialogue
and create a network of European,
South African and Indian youth.
The direct target group of the project
After a decade of communication,
despite some progress, there is still
low awareness of the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). Almost
three-quarters of Europeans have
never heard of the MDGs. A mere
5% of respondents are both aware
of the MDGs and knowledgeable
on their content. This situation does
not result from lack of interest: 42%
Europeans argue for media coverage
of development issues.
are the participants to the Case Study
Trips and the Final Conference. The
40 youngsters who took part to the
trips to India and South Africa were
exposed to a learning curve process.
They were divided into nine “task forces”
(one for each MDG plus a PR task force).
With the help of the trainers, each task
force conducted a thorough research
on their specific MDG and the reality
of the country which led to the drafting
of “task force strategies”. Once on the
ground, each task force organised work-shops
to prepare other participants on
the challenges addressed by their MDG.
The in-country preparation phase was
followed by activities on the ground
such visits, volunteer activities and
training during which participants
could observe the concrete work of de-velopment
actors like institutions, civil
society organisations, research centres
or other youth organisations. The ac-tivities
on the ground were followed by
constant evaluations, especially on best
practices of youth contribution to the
progress in the achievement of MDGs,
and by “project incubators”, sessions
during which participants designed
follow-up initiatives.
The results of the case study trips were
presented and discussed at the Final
Conference in Utrecht. The Conference
Eurobarometer 2009 – Development
Aid in Times of Economic Turmoil
Have you ever heard of the
Millennium Development Goals?
2% Yes, I know
what they are.
5% Yes, but I don’t
know what they are.
19% No.
74% I don’t Know.
We, a group of young peo-ple
from Europe, India and
South Africa, have joined
hands and taken up the
challenge of empowering
the youth in our countries
to contribute to the achieve-ment
of the Millennium
Development Goals.
In June 2009 we applied to
a call for proposals issued by
the European Commission’s
Education, Audiovisual, and
Culture Executive Agency,
Youth in Action 3.2 “Youth
in the World” for a project
aimed at increasing aware-combined
the experience participants
gathered during the case study trips
with the knowledge provided during
workshops, lectures and extensive net-working.
This created a fertile environ-ment
for the participants to become
active as multipliers and to develop of
follow-up actions. The project led to
the establishment of long-lasting part-nerships
among individuals and NGOs
involved and thus reproduced a global
partnership for development at the
micro-level.
What We
Have Done
6 BEYOND EUROPE Part One 7

The
Millennium Development Goals
Our world is one in which 1.5
billion people live in extreme
poverty, 9 million children
die every year, and 75 million
more are denied primary
education. Our world is still
plighted by diseases like HIV
and AIDS that together kill 2
million people every year, a
world where women are often
relegated to second rank, and
one in which the conditions of
life for future generations are
being undermined.
In year 2000, the 192 members of the
United Nations set far-reaching goals
to free humanity from poverty, hunger,
illiteracy and disease, to ensure gender
equality, respect for the environment
and the creation of a global partnership
for development. These are the United
Nations Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs).
In a nutshell, the importance of the
MDGs can be summarised in two points:
1. The MDGs offer a way of measuring
the problem. MDGs provide con-crete,
numerical benchmarks for
tracking extreme poverty in its many
dimensions and to give it a human-based
focus;
2. The MDGs show a way of solving the
problem. With the MDGs, the inter-national
community has infact com-mitted
to provide more and better
aid to the least developed countries,
to develop an open and fair interna-tional
trade and financial systems, to
cancel debts.
Throughout the project, we did not shy
away from looking at the Millennium
Development Goals also from a critical
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Halve the proportion of people living on less
than $1 a day.
• Achieve decent employment for women, men,
and youngsters.
• Halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
2. Achieve universal primary education
• By 2015, all children can complete a full course
of primary schooling, girls and boys.
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
• Eliminate gender disparity in primary and sec-ondary
education preferably by 2005, and at all
levels by 2015.
4. Reduce child mortality
• Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015,
the under-five mortality rate.
The Goals
MDGs Flash Mob
Utrecht Central Station
November 2010

perspective. Participants to our activities have read Jeffrey Sachs’ The End of Poverty as well as William Easterly’s The White Man’s Burden and Dambisa Moyo’s Dead Aid. We have discussed whether the MDGs are too ambitious or not ambitious enough, we have discussed about why the MDGs are sometimes seen as a top-down approach doomed to fail, or else, as failing to address the core problem at the heart of all others, growing worldwide inequality.
With our project, we have set ourselves the goal of understanding the root causes of poverty in its many dimensions, beyond just simple numbers and figures. Likewise, we have tried to understand how development cooperation works, with its strengths and weaknesses, and how we, the youth, can take active part in it.
During and after the case study trips we have asked ourselves questions such as: Why are there every year more kids who drop out of school than kids who enroll in institutions like the Don Bosco Institute in Nakurot in rural India? We asked ourselves the question how can there be, in the same city, Cape Town, a primary school which charges a fee of 100 Rands a year and one that charges 4000 Rands a month? And how likely is it for a student from the first school to study one day at a university compared to a student from the second school? We have asked
Frederik Bordon
Focal point on the International Year of Youth for the United Nations Regional Information Centre (UNRIC) in Brussels. He joined us in Utrecht during the Final Conference to share his perspective on youth and the MDGs.
Why are the MDGs important?
The MDGs are first of all important because they are measurable targets to be met by a specific date. They are goals that can be achieved through global commitment. But more important, they are not only about numbers, but about people, about goals that represent human needs and basic rights.
Do you think they can be achieved by 2015?
We can definitely make even more progress than has already been made, but I cannot tell if we can achieve them. However, I think it is our duty to give it a try. We as youth are the future generation. I am convinced that youth can come up with innovative ideas to tackle the challenges the world is facing today.
Do you think Europe is doing enough to
achieve the MDGs?
No, I think not. European countries made a promise, but not all have kept it. Billions of people count on the international community to live up to the pledges made, development budgets cannot simply be cut and promises cannot be broken when faced with an economic and financial crisis.
What can the youth do to achieve the MDGs?
Awareness raising is a very important step, and in this respects, the youth can contribute to a better and faster achievement of the MDGs through for instance campaigns and the use of new media and social networks.
What do you think about our project?
It is a good example of dialogue and mutual understanding (the themes of the International Year of Youth). It is good to see young organizations getting involved into policy making because they can really make a difference. Cross-cultural projects are great, because they not only raise questions, but also give the youth the opportunity through first hand experience to better understand the problems developing countries are dealing with.
Interview With Frederik Bordonourselves why in some villages of Bihar in India do parents refuse to submit vaccination to their children? We have asked ourselves the question why are there annually 2,500 reported cases of young married women who set themselves on fire or are burnt by their husbands? We have tried to grasp the full consequences of the fact poor people in South Africa spend 16% of their disposable income in alcohol and several other questions.
During and after the case study trips we have tried to understand concepts like poverty circles, aid effectiveness, ownership, among many others. We have tried to answer questions like whether democracy is a pre-condition to development or the other way round, whether aid is part of the solution or part of the problem, the extent to which policies like for instance trade, agricultural or intel- lectual property have an impact on development, or, whether population control is a solution to extreme poverty.
We have also met with development practitioners and tried to understand what works in development. Why for example have some development NGOs started a training on condom-use targeted exclusively at female hair-dressers? Why does Testing Action Campaign in South Africa fight HIV stigma with the help of people going around wearing t-shirts with written “HIV positive”? Why in areas of Khayelitsha where people live in two-floor houses are crime rates lower?
This booklet will not provide you with an answer to all these questions, nonetheless, it will show you how we have encouraged over 100 young people from Europe, India and South Africa, together, to ask themselves such questions and to find themselves, through the knowledge and experience acquired throughout the project, answers to them.
5. Improve Maternal Health
• Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio.
• Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health.
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases
• Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.
• Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it.
• Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
• Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs; reverse loss of environmental resources.
• Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss.
• Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
• By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers.
8. Global partnership for development
• Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system.
• Address the Special Needs of the Least Developed Countries (LDC).
• Address the special needs of landlocked developing countries and small island developing States.
• Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable in the long term.
• In co-operation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable, essential drugs in developing countries.
• In co-operation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications.
The Goals Continued...
In the Monterrey Summit of 2002, world leaders set the target of 0.7% of their Gross National Income (GNI) to be spent on Official Development Assistance (ODA). Apart from some exceptions, the target is very unlikely to be met by all EU member states.

Objectives 1. Awareness
Raise young people’s
awareness of the
global challenges
addressed by the
MDGs and actions
undertaken to
tackle them.
1. Cape Town – Not all of us have a development background. During
the first days, we level the knowledge playing field. In South Africa
for example, the Kirstenbosch Botanic Garden in Cape Town sets the
scenery for a number of thematic workshops on the MDGs.
2. India – Once prepared, we engage with external awareness-raising
activities. In India for example, we present the MDGs to schoolchildren
at the Gujarat Public School, Baroda, we ask them to stand behind
the placard of the MDG they think is the most important one and to
explain why.
3. Baroda – In India we also organise a drawing competition for over
100 students from all over Baroda, the themes are: health, gender
equality and the environment.
4. Delhi – We are welcomed at the premises of the Vishwa Yuvak Kendra,
the Indian National Youth Forum, by a fifty-large delegation of Indian
youth coming from all over the Indian “continent” to share experience
and practices about development work.
5. During the case study trips we also observe best practices of
awareness-raising activities. SCORE for example is an NGO which
aims at human development through sport and works with children
and adolescents from unprivileged environments in Cape Town. We
take take part in one of their sport activities aimed at informing
adolescents about HIV/AIDS.
6. South Africa – Another example is given by the Volunteer Centre in
Khayelitsha which offers training to the local community to increase
awareness about HIV/AIDS and encourage responsible behaviour and
prevention. For us it is particularly interesting to observe the language
and communication tools employed.
7. Utrecht –And it is finally in Utrecht where we reach out to hundreds
of young Europeans. We organise a series of panel discussions at the
University of Utrecht, as well as debates on the MDGs, micro-credit,
and aid at the Utrecht City Hall; we also organise a movie night and,
during one of the last days, we take part to a flash mob in Utrecht
Central Station.
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Objectives 2. Participation
Encourage youth
involvement in the
collective effort to
achieve the MDGs.
When visiting a rural area in Gujarat,
India, we discover how communities and
individuals struggle to maintain their
livelihoods, specifically in contexts where
water is a scarce commodity.
1. India and South Africa – We visited different schools, from different
social and geographical backgrounds. We observed how fees, drop-out
rates, and gender-related issues create enormous inequality of
opportunities.
2. India – Children are driven out of school because they work in farms,
migrate to cities when there is no rain, or get married at a very early
age. Many children run away from their homes to become street
children in large cities.
3. India – Organisations like Don Bosco and Salaam Baalak Trust
offer street children a place to stay, education, medical treatment and
support to undertake training.
4. New Delhi – Gender Resource Centres teach women about their
rights under Indian law as they often do not have socio-economic
independence. The organisation also teaches women specific skills
such as bag-making, for them to have more autonomy.
5. Cape Town – The Volunteer Centre trains local communities to
increase awareness about HIV/AIDS and encourages responsibility and
prevention.
6. Baroda – In SGG Hospital we run workshops with medical students
and professionals about key health issues like abortion and cultural
practice of female foeticide.
7. India and South Africa – Problems faced on a daily basis by slum-dwellers:
lack of sanitation and sewage systems, power cuts, and high
rates of crime.
8. Cape Town – The Nial Mellon Township programme, an Irish organi-sation
that organises a rehabilitation programme for slum-dwellers.
Volunteers from all over the world, participate in the construction of
new houses.
9. Cape Town – Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading
(VPUU) conducts studies and crime mapping , consults the local
community and facilitates socio-economic development and the
prevention of crime.
10. Delhi – The European Union Delegation to India shows the prog-ress
of India’s achievement towards the MDGs and of development
cooperation with the EU.
11. Cape Town – The African Monitor, a pan-African research institute
established in 2006 assesses the effectiveness of development aid.
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Objectives 3. Multiplication
Inspire young people to become successful multipliers in their societies using the knowledge, experience and skills acquired during the course of the project.
1. The Case Study Trips provided us with the knowledge and tools to become agents of change and develop new ideas for the follow-up.
2. At the conclusion of each Case Study Trip, we gathered in so-called “project incubators”, sessions especially devoted to the development of follow-up actions.
3. During the final conference in Utrecht we had an opportunity to sharpen our tools with the help of, for instance, specialists in campaigning from BKB, a Dutch organisation that organises events and campaigns in the Netherlands and abroad.
4. Towards the end of the Final conference in Utrecht, the new project ideas could be discussed with a wide range of representatives from development NGOs in The Netherlands during a networking meeting hosted by Utrecht’s city council.
5. The experience acquired through the project is also brought to other fora. Andrea Carafa, involved with the project from April 2010, presented the outcomes of the Case Study Trip to India during the World Youth Congress in Istanbul, Turkey in July 2010. Andrea is now the Liaison Officer of AEGEE to the United Nations.
6. Gabriela Motroc, inspired by her experience in South Africa participated and became one of the finalists of the Young Reporters Against Poverty, a competition organised by EuropeAid in the framework of the European Development Days in Brussels, 6-8 December 2010.
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Objectives 4. Cultural Dialogue
Create a culturally diverse work environment and increase intercultural dialogue between European, South African and Indian youth.

Activities Preparatory Meeting
It was a cold and rainy Brussels, in early December, to set the stage for the first step of our project. Representatives of the partner organisations from Europe, India and South Africa gathered in the European capital for a four-day programme. On the agenda: the task of planning the the two case study trips to India and South Africa and the Final Conference in The Netherlands.
During the meeting we discussed in detail about the project and its components. But even more importantly, working together, even for only four days, we got a chance to get to know each other and our organisations and create strong inter- personal links. At the end of the sessions, held in at AEGEE’s headquarters and under the auspices of the European Youth Forum, we had hammered out a timeline for the year-long project and a programme for the upcoming events.
Brussels offered also the opportunity to get to know the European Union’s institutions, thanks to a visit to the European Commission, and feel the vibe of Brussels’ civil society and youth activBrussels
10-13 December 2009
10 participants ism in a networking session we organised together with Euractiv, the independent specialised European Union affairs portal for EU policy professionals.
The meeting ended with a cultural night during which European, Indian and South African typical food, drinks and clothes could be exchanged. A little taste of the next stop... India!
Young Europeans, Indians and South Africans visit the European Commission in Brussels

Activities Case Study Trip India
Vadodara, Delhi
23 June -13 July 2010
24 participants
Before arriving to India, when we were still living our routine lives in Europe, all of us knew that it was going to be an unforgettable experience, magical as India is and above all, enriching. In the end, it turned out to be exactly this way. India offered us the best of itself since our arrival. We were welcomed with open arms, people were warm, generous, humble, and lovely.
Before going to India, the twenty selected participants prepared the CST’s activities with the help of their trainers and Indian partners. Each participant was responsible for two Millennium Development Goals according to their knowledge or motivation. Each working group or “task force” elaborated a strategy for the activities they would develop in India.
Our adventure started when all participants and trainers of the Case Study Trip to India met at Heathrow airport, London, after having arrived from all over Europe. The historic journey of AEGEE going beyond Europe for the first of facilities, availability of teachers and drop-out rates. To redress these inequalities, some schools can offer free access and boarding to their students, thanks to public or private funding. The Mahatma Ghandi Global Indian Foundation Eklavya School for instance, situated in Western India’s area at Tilakwada, offers an opportunity to the most disadvantaged in society by granting free access to education to 300 indigenous children aged between 10-15 years old.
Although many efforts have been made, a large number of children in India are driven out of school. In Vadodara and in Delhi, we were faced with the daily problems of street children. On average, more than 30 children every day arrive to Delhi looking for a better life, they either away from their homes, they try to escape from grinding poverty, violence, drunk parents, arranged marriages or they simply get lost. In Vadodara and especially in Delhi, there are a lot of NGOs aiming to help million of children living in streets. Saalam Baalak Trust and Don Bosco for instance provide street children with basic health care, shelter, a place to play and dream, giving them care and love, educating them and helping them find
their parents. time in its history started on 22 June 2010 and took us for two weeks to Vadodara (23 June - 5 July) and for one week to Delhi (5 July – 13 July).
After being introduced to our partner organisations, AIESEC-Baroda and the Gujarat Public School-BRG Group, we were taken for a tour around the school, the place where most of our activities would take place in the following two weeks. At the school, the different task forces (the group of participants dealing with each MDG) organised presentations, role plays and discussions for the children related to the MDGs. In order to raise awareness about the challenges tackled by the MDGs, we also organised a drawing competition that involved 150 students from different schools of Vadodara. We divided the participants into three groups according to their age and the topics of the drawings were: “Environment Sustainability”, “Health is Wealth”, and “Gender Equality”. Thanks to these experiences, we could establish a dialogue with kids and discover the extent to which they were aware of the different problems and they shared their opinion about the subject.
Education was one of the main themes of our field visits. We visited several schools from different contexts. It was striking for us to see the difference between city and rural schools, in terms
Mahatma Gandi
“The best way to find yourself, is to lose yourself in the service of others..”
Main Local Organisers:
Abhilasha Agrawal (Gujarat Public School) and Sargam Gupta (BRG Group)
Hamza Adenwala (AIESEC-Boroda)

In Delhi we also took part to one of the
innovative ways of discussing about HIV
and fighting stereotypes, trough sport
(something we will later come across in
South Africa too). It was at the end of a
football game with members of Sahara
House, an organisation that fights
against health-based discrimination.
In Delhi we also visited the World Health
Organisation, the UN agency dealing
with health-related problems, and talk-ed
to the unit responsible for organis-ing
the national polio vaccination and
eradication campaign in Uttar Pradesh
and Bihar. Polio has been defeated in
the Western world, but in some states
in India, it is still a tangible threat. The
experts explained to us
that the challenge is very
often not to get enough
vaccines, but to persuade
parents to let their kids be-ing
vaccinated as they fear
vaccination campaigns are
in reality aimed at popula-tion
control.
Rural India was another
reality we were faced to.
Thanks to a visit to the
rural villages in Gujarat
(Vadodara’s state), we
learnt about life conditions
of farmers and the way
they endure challenges like
water scarcity. During one
of the last days in Gujarat
we visited the Reliance
Corporation. The goal of
the visit was to find out the Corporate Social Responsibility
(CSR) and the environmental responsibility aspects of the con-glomerate,
specifically in the field of plasticulture, that is, the
use of plastics in agriculture, water management, pants pro-tection
and post harvest operations. We learnt that the appli-cation
of plastic sheeting and pipes, as well as drip irrigation,
reduces water usage by us much as 70%, an admirable reduc-tion
in terms of environmental impact as well as producing
costs savings. However, our doubt about the environmental
severe damages of plastics were left unanswered.
But we were not only confronted with the problems of rural
areas, but also of densely populated and economically de-pressed
urban areas. It was during the first day in Delhi that
we saw one of the most impressive realities of India: the slum.
Kusumpur Pahari is one of the slums most crowded of Delhi
and it counts more than 10,000 inhabitants. The first impact
was shocking: goats, pigs, chickens, rubbish and a lot of semi-naked
children all together.
But there we also realised
how important NGOs and
their actions are, trying to
save the future of the peo-ple
living in such precarious
conditions. Since 1990, the
Rotary Club of South Delhi
carries out a project called
“Livelihood” which develops
different actions in the fields
of education, vocational
trainings, gender equality,
health care and community
life. We also took part to the
surveys which were being
carried out in the different
Prior to our arrival to India, we
had also established contacts
with several NGOs and commu-nity
based organisations, active
in urban and in rural areas alike,
dealing with women empower-ment.
Among those which strive
to achieve gender equality in
India, we visited the Gender
Resource Centre in Okhla, Delhi.
In this centre, around two hun-dred
women receive daily train-ing
about basic IT education, or
how to manufacture bags, em-broidery
products, all skills that
will help them find a job. The
Gender Resource Centre regular-ly
holds lectures by women law-yers
about women rights under
the Indian law, we assisted to a
lecture on women rights against
dowry, the practice whereby
the bride’s family transfer huge
amounts of money and goods
to the husband’s family, which is
forbidden in India.
When dealing with the health
MDGs, namely MDGs 4, 5 and
6, maternal care, child mortal-ity,
HIV/AIDS and other diseas-es,
we visited the SGG Hospital
in Vadodara and the Eye-care
Centre in Delhi. In both cases
we could discuss at large with
local stuff and medical students
about the challenges of mater-nal
care, the still very recurrent
cases of female foeticide, and
HIV prevention. - Sara Rebollo Ramírez
• Presentation by AIESEC and GPS-BRG
Group, Vadodara
• Workshops for kids on the MDGs, Vadodara
• Drawing Competition on the MDGs
for 150 student, Vadodara
• Visit to schools from different social
and economic contexts, Vadodara
• Visit to the Don Bosco Institute, Vadodara
• Visit to Salaam Baalak Trust, Delhi
• Visit to the Gender Resource
Centre of Okhla, Delhi
• Visit to the World Health Organisation, Delhi
• Visit to SGG Hospital in Vadodara and
Eye-care Centre in Nuh, Delhi
• Football Game with Sahara House, Delhi
• Visit to Reliance Corporation Corporate Social
Responsibility programmes, Vadodara
• Meeting with families in rural areas, Vadodara
• Visit to the hydropower plant on
the Narmada River, Gujarat
• Meeting with Joining Hands and
visit to field programmes, Delhi
• Meeting with Vishva Yuwak Kendra
(International Youth Council), Delhi
• Visit to the European Union Delegation
to India and Bhutan, Delhi
• Visit to field programmes of
Action Aid India, Delhi
• Visit to Rotary International’s Livelihood
Programme for slum-dwellers, Delhi
• Project Incubator, Delhi
Highlights
households to get to know the needs and situation of
their members.
While in Delhi, we also had a chance to discuss about
the global partnership for development and develop-ment
cooperation between India and the European
Union, during a visit to the EU Delegation to India
and Bhutan. There we talked with delegation experts
about the status of the Millennium Development
Goals in India as well as the EU programmes and fund-ing
schemes.
Finally, we were welcomed by Vishwa Yuvak Kendra
(International Youth Centre) whose aim is to develop
common understanding and leadership between
among young Indians, by a fifty-large delegation of
Indian youths coming from all over the Indian “conti-nent”.
For them, as well as for us, this was unprecedent-ed,
they could discuss in small circles with us about
their social work and we could learn from their expe-rience.
We also had the opportunity to talk with Prof.
Anand Kumar from Jawaharlal Nehru University about
youth active citizenship and cooperation between
north and south and also with Mr. Manish Sisodia from
the NGO KABIR who works to raise awareness about
the Right to Information Act.
The case study trip offered us also the opportunity
to get to know more the Indian culture and lifestyle.
For example, we had a basic Hindi language lesson
at the Gujarat Public School, a course of cricket (the
most important sport for Indian people), and a relax-ing
yoga lesson! But there was also a non-planned en-counter
with something typical of South-East Asia: the
Monsoon! While in Delhi for the first time in our life, we
witnessed to entire days of massive rains, floods, and
how Indians cope with this seasonal phenomenon!
“Student shows his
drawing related to
MDG7 “Environmental
Sustainability” in the
drawing competition”.

Activities Case Study Trip
South Africa
Cape Town
10-24 September 2010
24 participants
customed with the city and we were given an in-troduction
by our partner organisations, ARESTA
(Agency for Refugee Education, Skills Training and
Advocacy) and UTRS (Unity for Tertiary Refugee
Students). Our trip would not have been possible
without their help. ARESTA and UTRS are two or-ganisations
run by refugees that provide support
to other refugees in Cape Town. Dealing not only
with South Africans, but also with people from
all over the continent like Rwanda, DRC Congo,
Mozambique, Kenya, and Somalia enriched enor-mously
our experience. ARESTA assists refugees
from the moment they step into South African soil
until they acquire citizenship rights, UTRS deals
specifically with students and strives for tertiary
education to be open and accessible to all refugees
and asylum seekers wishing to further their knowl-edge,
skills, and personal development.
During the first days in South Africa we also took
part to workshops on the Millennium Development
Goals. The workshops were held in the natural
beauty of the Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden and
our cosy hostel lounge. Workshops dealt with the
different MDGs, they were full of debates and inter-action,
they inspired us, made us more creative and
prepared for the activities on the ground.
The following days were devoted to the differ-ent
MDGs. When dealing with MDG2 – Ensuring
universal primary education we visited
three schools. This was for us like climb-ing
down the ladder of standards of edu-cation
and life opportunities. The first was
the Maitland High School, a school which
used to be white-only and after the end of
Apartheid suddenly became a black-only
school. The school retains good educa-tion
standards, its only challenges are the
fact students have to travel much to get to
the school, and 80% of them do not speak
English as their first language. “Poverty
is just around the corner”, one student af-firmed,
“education is the only way out”, a
life insight we would hardly ever hear from
a European student of the same age. The
following two schools we visited were lo-cated
in the township named Khayelitsha
and were only attended by local kids. One
had adequate levels of funding, even pri-vate
funding, a well-equipped computer
room and library, the other, while only a
few hundred metres away, lacked teachers,
proper infrastructure and teaching facilities
(with 35-38 students per class), the head-master
told us that robbers would break in
regularly to steal computers and food. The
last school had no volunteers, as opposed
to the other two, for its students, university
education is almost an impossible dream.
Our journey started on 9
September at Frankfurt
International Airport. That was
the beginning of a once-in-a-
life-time experience for all
of us, when all relationships
bonded, when everything
became possible.
The case study trip was something we had been
waiting with excitement, and it was not going to
be a blind-folded experience for us. In fact, we had
been preparing it through numerous sessions of
Skype meetings with our trainers and many hours
of research.
Once we reached our final destination, Cape Town,
after a fourteen-hour journey, we got to know
each other and our friends from India, we got ac-
Main Local Organisers:
Joseph Eliabson Maniragena
and Jean Luc Tshiamala
(ARESTA)
Jean-Claude Manaliyo and
Jamala Safari (UTRS)

Highlights
- Gabriela Motroc
to remember and pass on to friends
and classmates.
During a visit to the Volunteer Centre in
Khayelitsha we also took part to an HIV
prevention workshop organised by lo-cal
trainers for the local community and
other volunteers from Mozambique.
Throughout the Case Study Trip we
also dealt assiduously with MDG8 –
Developing a Global Partnership for
Development. We took part to a work-shop
and a simulation game on a trade
agreement which made us acquainted
with the issues of development coop-consulting
the local community and
thus creating a true “ownership”.
Another very interesting, once in a life
time experience for us, was to build a
house. This project is annually organ-ised
by Niall Mellon Township Trust and
the houses themselves are funded by
the Government, which provides free
homes for the poorest people from the
community. Motivation was sometimes
bigger than physical strength, but we,
as amateurs, can be proud of having
taken part in this volunteer project.
South Africa is sadly also one of the
countries in the world with the high-est
rates of HIV prevalence.
During many visits we dealt
with this problem and saw
how different organisations
contribute to raise awareness
among civil society. One day
we joined the SCORE team
for a football match. Based
in Kenya, Zambia and South
Africa, SCORE is an NGO
which aims at human devel-opment
through sport and
works with children and ado-lescents
from unprivileged
environments with a view to
educating them as individu-als.
Not only did we play foot-ball
with the locals and some
volunteers, but we also learnt
how SCORE spread knowl-edge
about HIV/AIDS through
games for youngsters, which
makes the information easier
their member students work in educa-tion
programmes and around 800 work
on health care. During the day, we vis-ited
their field programmes, we saw vol-unteers
helping children improve their
basic skills (such as numeracy and liter-acy)
and in the evening we had the op-portunity
to see the students working
in a mobile clinic in Khayelitsha. The lat-ter
not only give free consultations and
medicines, but also counselling. This is
an exceptional way of bringing future
doctors closer to needs of the deprived
ones living in the townships.
During our case study trip we also
dealt with other problems affecting
slum-dwellers, one of them is the high
rate of crime. A visit to VPUU (Violence
Prevention through Urban Upgrading)
made us realise the real scale of crimi-nality
in South Africa. VPUU creates
partnerships with the public and private
sector and several civil society organi-sations
to provide township residents
with an enriching, lively and safe envi-ronment.
VPUU upgrades the urban set-tings
of Harare, an area of Khayelitsha,
by creating commonly run public spac-es,
or building houses in such a way that
human presence discourages criminal
behaviour along for instance routes
people take every morning to go to
town to work. VPUU encourages locals
to patrol these common spaces in ex-changes
for credits they can later trade
for training or hours of work in the con-struction
sites. More importantly, VPUU
does not carry out its urban plans in a
top-down fashion, but it does so after
eration and aid effectiveness. This pre-pared
us for the time we stepped in the
premises of the African Monitor, an in-dependent
African body which acts as a
catalyst to monitor development fund-ing
commitments, delivery and impact
on grassroots level and to bring African
voices onto the development agenda.
A lot of unanswered questions were
cleared in an open discussion with the
African Monitor staff.
For us, it was finally very educative to
blend the technical and expert knowl-edge
we were given throughout the trip
with a flavour of the opinion of the av-erage
South African. For this reasons we
organised a survey among the popula-tion
during which we asked questions
like “what do you and don’t like about
your country?”, “what are the key chal-lenges
for South Africa?”, “what has
changed in your life after Apartheid?”,
“do you know the MDGs?”, “will there
ever be a female president of South
Africa?” and other questions about HIV
prevention and the environment. This
way we learnt that listening to the peo-
• 8 workshops on the MDGs ple is key for the success of any policy.
• Presentations by
ARESTA and UTRS
• Survey among the population
• Meeting with the Volunteer
Centre and a group of vol-unteers
from Mozambique
• Education day: visit to three
schools in different social
and economic contexts
• Lecture with a Professor
and Student for the
University of Cape Town
• Visit to SHAWCO’s field
programmes (educa-tion
and health care)
• Football game and HIV knowl-edge
games with SCORE
• House building volun-teer
activity with Niall
Mellon Township Trust
• Simulation game on a
trade agreement
• Visit and discussion with
the African Monitor
• Visit to the South
African Parliament
• Visit to VPUU (Violence
Prevention through
Urban Upgrading)
• Project Incubator
Another day we visited the University
of Cape Town (among the top 200 uni-versities
in the world) and met with
people from the organisation SHAWCO
(Student Health and Welfare Centres
Organisation). SHAWCO is a student or-ganisation
that promotes student vol-unteering
in the community. 1500 of

Activities Final Conference
Utrecht,
18-25 November 2010
46 participants
- Yanike Sophie,
Muriel Eerkens,
Mirjam van Velzen,
Hilde de Leeuw, Tos Alles,
Jurriaan Kalf and Marleen Dijkhoff
During the six-day programme, interna-tional
participants and local youths at-tended
several trainings and lectures on
the challenges faced by developing coun-tries
and the efforts made to tackle them.
Since 20 November was the UN day of
children’s rights, part of the programme
was devoted to the importance of chil-dren’s
right. During this very insightful
session, we learnt about the Convention
on th Right of the Children and the cu-rious
fact that Somalia and the United
States are the only two countries in the
world not to have ratified it. We learnt
about best practices of organisations
involved in children’s right, like for ex-ample
Kids Rights, an organisation that
inspires youngsters around the world
by handing out the youth equivalent
of the Nobel Peace Prize or the project
“Because I’m a Girl” which adopts a ho-listic
approach to children rights that
gives particular attention to girls.
Another part of the programme dealt
with diseases access to medicine. The
debate was followed by a lecture by
Jonathan King from the University of
Cape Town who offered us a critical ap-proach
to statistics, especially when it
comes to the health MDGs. According to
Mr King, some countries count smarter
than others and this makes it very im-portant
for the researchers to investi-gate
about the source of data.
The conference was also an opportunity
for us to learn, in a talk with Member
of the European Parliament Ska Keller,
about the European Union’s develop-ment
policy and the principle of policy
coherence for development.
During the final conference in Utrecht
we also had an opportunity to sharpen
our campaigning and communication
tools with the help of Kay van de Linde,
a Dutch communications strategist
with extensive experience in strategic
communications, crisis communica-tions,
press strategy and political cam-paigns.
‘The power of the people can be
strong if you have a good strategy – try
to change the world bit by bit’ (more in
“Advocate”, p. 52).
After this inspiring workshop, the pro-gramme
of the day about MDG 7 became
even more interesting with the arrival of
Dr. Vandana Shiva, philosopher and en-vironmental
activist. The Nicolai Church
was full of enthusiastic people willing to
listen and learn from her lecture about
sustainable farming. Vandana Shiva con-cluded
her speech with the inspiring
words of Ghandi: ‘The Earth has enough
for everyone’s needs, but not enough for
some people’s greeds’.
Overall, the Conference combined the
experience participants had gathered
during the case study trips to India and
From 18 to 25 November 2010 the
year-long project drew to a close
with the final conference held in
Utrecht, The Netherlands. Forty-six
youngsters from all over the world
gathered after the two case study
trips to India and South Africa to
discuss about their experiences,
about follow-up initiatives, and
about youth contribution to
development cooperation.
Vandana Shiva meets young
European, Indian and South African
students in Utrecht and discusses
with them about biodiversity.
• 78,44% liked the speakers.
• 83,6% of the people thought the sub-ject
of the program was interesting.
• 73,8% liked the accommodation.
• 31% didn’t know a lot about
the MDG’s before.
• 61,5% learnt something about the MDG’s.
• 68% got inspired.
• 76,5% will spread the information
gathered amongst their friends.
• 50% will change something in
his or her way of living.
• 44,5% of the visitors will join an exist-ing
organization working on MDGs
or will start up a new project.
• 40% of the visitors is living in Utrecht.
• 72% of the visitors were students.
• 24,7 years was the aver-age
age of the visitors.v
Survey
South Africa with the knowledge pro-vided
during the workshops and lec-tures
and extensive networking. This
created a fertile environment for the
participants to become active as mul-tipliers
and to develop of follow-up ac-tions
of all kinds. From personal actions
to international projects. For example,
during the conference some people
became vegetarian, others set up a
volunteering network for AEGEE mem-bers,
others joined hands in a renewed
partnership between young Europeans,
Indians and South Africans.
The Dutch city of Utrecht turned out to be the most
suitable venue for the Final Conference. The munici-pality
of Utrecht, as a Millennium Municipality, is do-ing
its utmost best in order to achieve the Millennium
Development Goals. In addition, the conference could
take places within months from the launch of the
United Nations Year of Youth, which acknowledges the
active role of youth at the local and global level.

Visibility
The Case Study Trips to
India and South Africa
enjoyed media coverage
and large visibility.
News about the field
visits were reported in
local newspapers, as
well as national ones
like the Indian Express
or international like the
United Nations Youth
Flash bulletin.
From left to right, from top to bottom:
1. Calendar of the Case Study Trip to India, by Mathieu Soete, Milan Padilla,
Dora Kocsis and Mateusz Żuławski.
2. “Youth of Baroda meet up in South-Africa”
3. “Students from AIESEC Baroda will visit Netherlands for MDGs-final
conference to fulfill a dream of Peaceful World.”
4. “International youth visited Government Hospital of Baroda to know
about services provided by hospital in order to cure disease”.
5. “International students visited Government Hospital of Baroda to know
about the services provided by the hospital to the HIV positive patients”.
Online Publications:
www.beyondeurope.wordpress.com
www.cstindia.wordpress.com
www.cstsouthafrica.wordpress.com
www.mdgsconference.org

Fearless Lions
Shiniest stars on moonless night
in a bleak and doomed time
of sorrowful and painful ending
to all dreams and trances of Earth
Youth, you are the redeemers
My sobbing wounds do not daunt
your tender nursing hands
neither fires nor storms frighten
your spirit of fearless lion on a mission
you heard my cry and come to my salvation
Engraved in the memory of time shall be
the wisdom and bravery of your generation
as it is not the bitterness of tears nor
the mistakes of my yesterday’s crossing
that you come to sing and mourn for
You come to ignite the dream of the human race
in search of answers to the enigma of its history
haunted by the grief-stricken cries of starving children
endless burial songs of daily HIV-AIDS victims
and tears of souls drowning in climate calamity
As my lungs weakness and my heart refuses
to beat on the rhythm of happy morning songs
my fragile existence lies within your hands
your vision and astuteness are my shining hope
for you are the rescuer of the human race on this planet
- Jamala Safari 2010
Jamala Safari
UTRS,
Deputy Chair: African
Artists Unite as One
jamalasafari.blogspot.com
Part Two
What We
Have Learnt
34 BEYOND EUROPE Part Two 35

tered many examples of people adhering to their old positions in the system.
The double face of India became especially apparent during our visit to Delhi. On the one hand one could find sophisticated restaurants, five star hotels, wonderful, air conditioned congress centres and skyscrapers that might as well have been taken out of the skyline of Manhattan – and right next to this there were slums, which were cut off from the city’s water and sewage systems. We could experience a Delhi that is growing, expanding and continuously renewing itself. Ahead of the Commonwealth games of October 2010 a lot of infrastructure projects were undertaken. But the dark side of this development are the many shelters alongside the streets where all the construction workers were living for the duration of the works – who knows what happened to them as soon as the constructions were finished? Could they find another job? Or another shelter?
Poverty is still prevailing in an India, where income is very unequally distributed. For us, this extreme poverty was sometimes difficult to picture or describe. “Sometimes you meet children and think ‘these poor kids live in these squalid conditions’ – said one of the participants - and then you realise that they’re the lucky ones who are in a Rotary programme or in a free primary school…”
About India
“United in diversity” is not just the slogan describing Europe, it could also describe the country we visited during our first case study trip: Incredible India, one of the most diverse countries on earth. In size, number of languages, religions and different cultures, India seems to be a continent on its own.
Next to its ethnic diversity, the Indian society has traditionally been divided into different castes, a division that originally stem from the Hindu religion but was also followed by Muslims and Christians in India. According to the caste system, every citizen is born inside a certain caste which determines the further course of his/her life, the choice of his/her profession and the right partner to marry for life. The system is based on four different groups, the priests (Brahmans), the princes, the merchants and the craftsmen. At the bottom of or, according to some interpretations, even outside the caste system are the “untouchables”, also known as dalits who are discriminated in many ways. The untouchables are for example forbidden from entering temples and they must work barefoot in presence of higher castes members, and they cannot drink from the same cup as others. Even though the concept of castes is slowly blurring, and caste-based discrimination is forbidden by law, we still encounA
million faces of India…
India is a beautiful country, yet it is one of contradictions, ones that are juxtaposed against each other in the most blatant of ways. The skyscrapers and shanty towns, the fancy schools and the illiteracy, the exclusive restaurants and the starving infants, the boulevards and the dirty tracks, the SUVs and the barefoot children…
Christine Cassar, Malta
Youth as the Future?
[1] Confusingly, private schools are sometimes called public schools which still dates back to the times of British colonial rule as in old Britain public schools where the schools where people sent their kids when they could not afford private teaching at home – but those “public” schools were still private and quite expensive.
Prisca Merz
India’s growing population is the country’s blessing and curse at the same time. There are simply not enough teachers, doctors, universities and schools to offer their services to all Indians. But at the same time, there are so many young enthusiastic students among whom fierce competition encourages children to give their best at school and therefore have a chance for a university place.
During our case study trip, we visited many different schools and what was striking is the difference in quality between government schools and private schools [1]. At the Gujarat Public School, our partner school in Vadodora, we met many well-educated children. We held workshops with 13 year-olds in which we asked them to choose one of the MDGs and then give arguments about why they chose that particular MDG – their answers left all of us speechless – those chil36
BEYOND EUROPE Part Two 37

During our visit to the international youth centre Vishwa Yuvak Kendra we also had a chance to meet Manish Sisodia, the chief functionary of KABIR, a NGO that lobbied strongly for the adoption of the Right to Information Act in 2005. food and grain distribution however continues to be marred with corrupt and negligent behaviour by the officials.
Another law that was very important to increase not only the rule of law, but also the legitimacy, accountability and transparency of the Indian government was the Right of Information Act of 2005. The state is now required to respond to inquiries from its citizens, government officials’ behaviour, inefficiencies or abused can now be reported to higher level authorities, and there is growing awareness of people’s rights. For instance, schools in India now publicly display what rights pupils are entitled to.
The role of civil society organisation, and potentially the youth, is key to ensure that India’s culture of contestation remains alive. India has still a long way to go in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, but what we could feel many times when talking especially to young people in India was hope and confidence: Confidence that the time for India has come.
A talk with Father Stanny Ferrera, from one of the Don Bosco institutes in Gujarat, told us why in the last years there were more dropouts than new enrolments in his school. In the rural areas, he said, kids work in farms and when there is no rainfalls, in July and September, they migrate to the cities.
Gender Equality?
Although India is the largest democracy on earth, we have learnt that the enforcement of laws, on marriages, against dowries, against violence inside the family, against discrimination of lower castes and fostering their participation in the political life, and in many other areas is very challenging. The rule of law is not manifested in many parts of the country yet.
Furthermore, for example for laws offering material benefits for the most disadvantaged citizens it is not enough that they are adopted in Parliament. A constant process of “contestation” is needed in order for laws to reach the bottom of society. Contestation is the struggle the most deprived ones, with the help of organisations like Action Aid India, undertake to increase awareness about and enforce their rights under the law.
“I did not know anything about the concept itself of right before I took part to this project” told us a participant to one of Action Aid’s projects in Bawana, in the state of Delhi. The project empowers members of the resettlement colony of Bawana to claim their rights towards the local Public Distribution System. In 2001, the Supreme Court of India imposed on local authorities to make the central food schemes enforceable,
A Culture of Contestation
Do you wonder why baby gender prediction tests are forbidden by law in India? The answer is that gender can lead to the suppression of a girl’s life even before her birth. India is in fact one of the places in the world still largely afflicted by cases of foeticide, the cruel practice of killing babies at birth.
A girl in rural India is also very likely to receive worse food and health services. Another problem that Father Stanny Ferrera confronted us with is the low school enrolment of girls, especially in later years of education. He told us that in the villages it is still very normal for
In their professional life, women face gender-based prejudices. We were for instance told in several cases that women should rather work in a kind of job that is considered to be “female” (such as in the social or health sector or as teachers) or rather take care of the household. Also, it still happens quite often that even girls with university education quit their job as soon as they get married.
- Prisca Merz
dren were better in giving presentations than some of our fellow university students! On the other hand, we visited rural schools where not even the teachers were able to speak English and government schools in the outskirts of Delhi with 100 children per class and where, due to the lack of rooms, pupils were taught outside, without tables, chairs or proper teaching facilities. girls to get married and pregnant long before the age of 18, even though this is also forbidden by law (the official marriage age for girls is 18 and for men 21). Early marriage is one of the reasons why girls, especially in rural India, are less educated and have less chances in society.
Mostly in rural India, young girls are usually married according to the wishes of their parents or those of their husband’s family. It was shocking to read in the Indian news about cases of honour killings in which parents or brothers had killed their sister or daughter and her boyfriend or even husband for having married against the wish of their families. Even though honour killings are forbidden by law, there are still many reported cases in which the police has been accused of not investigating sufficiently – but thanks to the work of some NGOs the situation is slowly but surely improving.
Another problem we learned about is “dowry”. Dowry is the money that a woman brings to her husband in marriage to facilitate the union. In India the sums are so tremendously high that often poor families are stripped of all their savings. Furthermore, the amount to be paid increases with education and a girl should find a husband who has at least the same education as her – another disincentive for a girl’s parents to send her to school. In the most terrible cases, known as “bride burning”, the wife is burned because of her family’s refusal to pay additional dowry.
Dowries have been forbidden by law, but there is still widespread lack of awareness about it. To address this challenge, Gender Resource Centres, like the one we visited in Delhi, host once a week public meetings between local women and a lawyer who explains each time different laws and the rights they entrust upon women. Even though this initiative is quite successful and there are many similar initiatives, there is still a long way to go to reach gender equality.

About South Africa
The plight of post-Apartheid South Africa – and the role of youth for a better future.
For foreigners – especially those who have never been there – South Africa has a face. Nelson Mandela stands for the struggle of a country and its people to overcome its division. ‘Madiba’ – as he is lovingly called by his countrymen and -women – stands out as the figure in the country’s recent history and contemporary politicians still might feel intimated by his timely presence. Yet – and this is especially evident the more you learn about South Africa – the country has also moved on. The essential question is: Is the end of apartheid enough to change people’s lifes for the better?
The racial discrimination and inhumane divisions of the Apartheid era have been overcome. For four decades brave South Africans opposed, and at times also fought against a regime that due to its racial discrimination and hatred had increasingly caused embarrassment and outrage around the world until its downfall in the early 1990s. It is Nelson Mandela’s release from imprisonment that ransformed a society of ‘Whites Only’ policies to the rainbow nation of modern South Africa.
Christian
Eichenmüller
- Christian Eichenmüller
Yet today’s reality is far from the enthusiastic dreams of the transition period. Like every euphoria, South Africa’s colourful transition was followed by a period of fading dreams and shattered ambitions. Its fast-track into the 21st century became a bumpy ride, mainly due to its terrible record on three problematic societal arenas: HIV/AIDS, economic inequality and lack of education.
As we were arriving in South Africa one of the first statistics that captured our attention was the country’s AIDS rate. Estimations are that one in three South Africans is HIV positive. Its devastating record on tackling the ‘worst of all diseases’ was aggravated by sheer neglect on behalf of politicians. Thabo Mbeki, Nelson Mandela’s successor as President of the Republic of South Africa, didn’t believe in scientific reasoning and medical evidence and opposed any policies tackling the epidemic. Decisive change was only achieved when civil society movements such as the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), one of the most successful advocacy and pressure groups in Southern Africa, entered the scene – but activists and allied politicians still face an uphill battle.
Our way from the airport – a newly polished complex of cracking moderseem to sense that their only way to a better life runs through their classroom.
Lack of political vision and will to tackle the above mentioned problems leads to mixed progress with regard to the Millennium Development Goals. And it is here, that civil society organisations – like AIESEC, ARESTA, Gujarat Public School, UTRS and AEGEE – can most effectively work together. This project brought together youth from Europe, India and South Africa and it showed that another way is possible through increased awareness and participation of young people. As some participants put it, the Case Study Trip to South Africa was the best experience of their life – but it also opened their eyes with regard to the challenges ahead. The lessons learnt are an indispensable foundation for the future. To make this project successful, it is now on the participants to transform experience and knowledge into follow up initiatives – then Madiba’s struggle for a better life for all will find its continuation though the dozens of young idealists from Europe, India and South Africa. nity – to Cape Town centre already illustrated un known economic disparities, situated geographically close though separated as if of two different worlds. Post-apartheid inequality – along with its worst side effect: crime – poses the biggest challenge and stumbling block to a new South Africa. Racial apartheid was replaced by an economic apartheid in which a person’s birth place and family situation almost inescapably determines success or failure. The government’s efforts to tackle the racial divide (namely Black Economic Empowerment) can just be regarded as a small step causing its own controversies. South Africa up until now remains a divided society.
Education – though suffering from lack of resources and coherent policies – remains a major challenge but is nevertheless more part of the solution than it is part of the problem. Unfortunately education is still a privilege for those who can afford it. Nevertheless abetter society is possible with more focus on access to and improvement of education. Our experience through visiting schools in different townships in and around Cape Town, is that youngsters and educational staff are aware of the challenges confronting them. Pupils

COUNTRY
MEN, AVERAGE AGE AT MARRIAGE
WOMEN, AVERAGE AGE AT MARRIAGE
INDIA
24.8
20.2
SOUTH AFRICA
30.6
28
GERMANY
33.7
31
ITALY
33.3
30
SPAIN
31.6
29.3
The Potential of the Youth
These striking difference tell a lot about why youth means something different in Europe, and the West in general, than elsewhere in the world. In the Western world we talk about “boomerang kids” to describe the phenomenon of young people who take longer and longer to reach adulthood. The expansion of the transitional phase in life we call youth, especially in Europe, has led to larger self-consciousness among young people and consequent demands for “youth” to be recognised not only by sociologists, but also by policy-makers.
In India and in South Africa we could hardly find organisations that were independent and entirely run by young people. For young people it seemed to be difficult, if not impossible for instance to organise an event or a project, let alone raise financial resources, without the backing of an adult person. This has often to do with traditional patriarchal thinking and the lack of trust towards young people. Nevertheless, there is growing recognition among policy-makers that the youth is an untapped resource for the development of a country and it needs to be engaged, as it emerged from the study trips.
For youth potential to be fully tapped, it is necessary not only to provide the right framework and resources, but also to overcome prejudices and mistrusts. This becomes an imperative if only because nearly 50% of population is youth and children [2] and 1 out of 1.2 billion 15 to 24 year olds in the world live in developing countries [3].
About the Youth
What is Youth?
When we talk about youth, what do we actually mean? The official definitions are different. For the UN youth goes from 15 to 24, for the European Commission from 13 to 30. In South Africa we found out that the youth age ends at the age of 35.
Leaving aside numbers and official definitions, we have learnt two things, one is that youth is a transitional phase in life, a middle way between childhood and adulthood, between protection and responsibility; the second is that the duration of this transitional phase is very much dependent on the place where you grow up. Youth does in fact mean different things in Europe, India and South Africa. But why so?
To find an answer we should first of all have a look at some statistics about the age at which people get married or have their first child, two landmarks events in a person’s life which mark the passage from youth to adulthood. In India men get married at an average age of 24.8 and women at 20.2, as opposed to some countries in Europe where the average marital age is around 33 for men and 31 for women [1]. When it comes to pregnancies, in India and South Africa teenage pregnancy is from 13 to 15 times more frequent than in Europe. In India 73 newborn children out of 1000 have mothers aged between 15 and 19, in South Africa the rate is 66, a staggering figure compared to a country like the Netherlands where the teenage pregnancy only occurs in 5 cases every 1000 pregnancies.
[1] UNDP, World Marital Statistics 2008
[2] World Bank 2010
[3] 2005 figures, UN Population Division, Word Population Prospects, 2008 Revision
UNDP, World Marital Statistics 2008
Ms Abhilasha Agrawal
Director, Gujarat Public School, BRG GROUP
The one aspect that I really appreciate about Europe is youth activism. Not that there is a lack of youth activism and participation in India, but there is a lack of organised and recognised structures in educational institutes. I am amazed how these youth have a voice and how universities and other organisations provide a structured platform for expressing their views and ideas. This makes them more participatory in nature. If I could take one souvenir from Europe, it would be tap this youth activism and enthusiasm and professional work practises within this organisation in a bottle and show it in my school, educational institutes and the government bodies so that we could adapt them for our benefit...

About Development
Development is not just about aid.
We have learnt that to understand the problem of poverty we need to look beyond its symptoms, and beyond just aid as the cure. At the heart of under-development most often lie global patterns of production and trade which make some economies, especially those based on the export of few commodities, more vulnerable than others. At the heart of the problems also lie policies in Europe, for instance agricultural policies, which subsidise European production to the detriment of dispossessed farmers in the third world. In our talk with Member of the European Parliament Franziska Keller, we have discussed about the need for the European Union to ensure coherence between its development cooperation efforts and other policies affecting developing countries, like trade, agriculture, energy, fisheries, security, migration, research, transport, employment. With experts from the African Monitor in Cape Town we have looked at how such holistic approach to development is gaining momentum. If so far we have been dealing with “aid effectiveness”, the concept whereby every euro spent on development should produce the maximum degree of results on the ground, we are now witnessing the emergence of the broader concept of “development effectiveness”, whereby not just money, but every policy domain should be assessed for its impact on developing countries.
[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_collier_shares_4_ways_to_help_the_bottom_billion.html
Development is About Rights.
We have seen that for laws to offer material benefits for the most disadvantaged citizens it is not enough that they are adopted in Parliament. A constant process of “contestation” is needed in order for laws to reach the bottom of society. Contestation is the struggle the most deprived ones undertake to increase awareness about and enforce their rights under the law. “I did not know anything about the concept of right before I took part to this project” told us a participant to one of Action Aid’s projects in Bawana, in the state of Delhi. The project empowers members of the resettlement colony of Bawana to claim their rights towards the local Public Distribution System. In 2001, the Supreme Court of India imposed on local authorities to make the central food schemes enforceable, food and grain distribution however continues to be marred with corruption and negligence by public officials. Only a right-based approach to development can ensure long-term sustainability and impact.
Development is a multi-stakeholder process.
Development cooperation is not only a business between governments, but a process in which civil society, the youth, individuals are participants in their own right. We have learnt that for development to make a difference in the lives of the poorest, it is necessary that civil society is involved to the largest extent in the decision-making to allocate resources. In India we were faced with examples of mismanagement of resources when civil society’s voice was not heard such as the creation of a musical mountain or a helicopter pad were preferred to sanitation projects or paying the wage of street sweepers. In South Africa we appreciated the importance, even for projects planned and implemented by foreign development agencies, like the urban upgrading sites run by VPUU (Violence Prevention Through Urban Upgrading), of consulting with the local community and creating a sense of “ownership”. But we have also learnt that the private sector can play a fundamental role through CSR and the setting up of code of conducts and rules of transparency. In a nutshell, we have learnt that the public sector, business and civil society should work in unison and create synergies for development.
Development is About Minds, Not just a Technical Challenge.
In South Africa for example, it is not the lack of contraceptives that makes HIV prevention difficult, but atavistic instincts, stigma and ignorance. Many think that condoms are ineffective, or diminish the pleasure of a sexual intercourse, many think that HIV can be transmitted by hugging an HIV-positive person, others think that a shower can wash away the virus. Likewise, we have seen that in some areas of India, parents refuse to vaccinate their kids because they fear this will make their kids sterile. Development cooperation is about minds here in Europe too. Public opinion in Europe is concerned about problems like immigration, crime, unemployment, conflict and terrorism, but it often fails to see that poverty and under-development in the world is at the heart of all these problems. A world in which economic divergence between the rich and poor countries widens is going to be a less safe, less stable, and more unjust world. Therefore, for our governments to remain committed to their Official Development Assistance targets, especially at times of economic turmoil, it is necessary, as Paul Collier put it, that there is “a critical mass of informed citizenry” [1].

Youth Contribution to
Development
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people the permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Marianne Williamson, quoted in the film Coach Carter
Who were we to the people we were meeting? When people saw us walking through the slums, or through a hospi tal – a set of European‐looking students in the middle of devastation – what did we represent? An international system that was failing them? A group of people who don’t know anything intruding on their lives? A potential source of help?
- Christine Cassar, Malta
Developing countries don’t need exclu sively doctors, nurses, engineers or dip lomats, also “simple” people like me and like many other youth with a medium knowledge of a language like English or French or Spanish and with the will of being useful for the international com munity can do very much for this people. For me this is one of the most important things I learnt from this Case Study Trip.
- Marta Ibba, Italy
It is only recently that development agencies have started exploring the rationale for working with the youth. The youth used to be seen as the target of development policy, rather than as an actor. We aim to challenge this perception and claim a role of leadership for the youth in development.
Despite the differences across continents, there are common traits among the youth in Europe, India and South Africa. Youth can be more open-minded than older generation, more mobile and innovative. Youth tend to be creative in problem solving and solution finding. Youth can also be very good multipliers, in the circles of friends or in their family. Youth are also faster to adapt to new technology and new means of communication. When the environment offers them a chance, youth reap the benefits of globalisation and build transnational networks. More than anybody else, youth can profit from the power of interconnectedness.
Youth, especially in the countries we visited, show also a great sense of responsibility. Asked about why he wanted to pursue his studies, a pupil in the Maitland High School in Cape Town answered “there is no second chance, if you fail with your studies, well, just look around and you can see what your life will look like”.
The case study trips showed us several examples of youth contribution to development. In July 2010 the European delegation of AEGEE in Delhi was welcomed at the premises of the Vishwa Yuvak Kendra, the Indian National Youth Forum, by a fifty-large delegation of Indian youth coming from all over the Indian “continent”. This meeting showed us what youth do for the development of their own communities throughout India. Deepak from Orissa for instance runs an educational programme for farmers, a programme financed by international donors. Memul from Delhi organises field surveys in slums, a testimony to the fact that youth organisations can have a greater outreach than international donors when it comes to information gathering. Shailu from Madhaya Pradesh works in awareness programmes on the use of fertilisers and medicinal planting.
On the other hand we also recognise that youth can at times be inconsistent, unprofessional, or more vulnerable than others. But these elements are not an excuse for not engaging the youth, but instead they should lead to creating an even more solid ground for youth empowerment. We emphasise the specific need for international donors and partner countries to focus on the empowerment of young people, through capacity-bulding and an adequate framework which ensures mobility and access to funding opportunities. This creates youth as leaders and initiators of development [1].
In the following sections we categorise six main areas of youth contribution to development: everyday life, education, advocacy, volunteering, partnership and finally project management.
[1] Youth Participation in Development: A Guide for Development Agencies and Policy-Makers, UK Department for International Development

five year old mobile phone, instead
of the latest fancy models, and we
would ask questions to our retailer,
we would force producers to be
more transparent in a supply chain
that often fosters conflict, exploita-tion
and child labour.
Our power simply
derives from the fact
that we are consum-ers,
and as consumers
we can decide where,
what, and how to buy. If we want,
we can ask questions, we can put
pressure on our food retailer, on our
restaurant to know how much food
they wasted. We can expose com-panies
and governments, we can
blame and shame. Images of mobile
phones dripping with blood, stick-ers
saying “made in Congo” gener-ate
curiosity, prompt people to start
asking questions. And as the pres-sure
mounts, collectively, we can
make a difference.
If we would only become a little bit
more frugal in our everyday hab-its,
without undermining our liv-ing
standards, we would help the
lives of millions in the world. After
all, every marathon starts with a
single step.
capacity until the last minute before
closing time. It also means that around
50% of freshly picked potatoes are im-mediately
thrown back to the ground
after being sorted by a machine, be-cause
they do not fit average consum-ers
standards (they might
have black spots for ex-ample).
For many prod-ucts,
the food industry
determines the “best by”
date of the stuff they sell
which, for clear market logics, means
that the shorter the “best by” date is,
the more profit it brings... and the most
wasted food too. All this adds up to 90
million tons of food thrown away in
the European Union each year, 100 bil-lion
Euros worth of food each year. The
food thrown away in Europe and North
America would be enough to feed all
the hungry people in the world three
times over.But food is not the only ex-ample.
We Europeans also replace our
mobile phones on average every 18
months. Most of us do so unaware that
this often fuels a production chain that
often starts in the conflict-ridden mines
of Congo, passes by our homes and
offices, and ends up in the electronic
dumps of Lagos.
If we would waste less, we would buy
less and leave the food in the world
market. If we would be content with a
Before this project, when we thought of development pol-icy,
especially here in Europe, we thought of something
far, geographically and conceptually distant from our daily
life. At a first glance, development sounded like a business
of high politics, determined by the outcomes of interna-tional
conferences of donors, ministers, UN and World
Bank experts. It seemed like they (the powerful ones)
could make promises, they (the powerful ones again)
could break them, and we could not do much about it.
But the reality is a different one. We have learnt that there
is a direct link between little things we do everyday and
the big challenges of the developing world. The sugar we
pour in our morning tea or coffee for instance, or the tea
and coffee themselves, come from the developing world.
The minerals contained in our mobile phones and laptop
computers come from the developing world too, and so
does much of the food served on our tables, especially
fruit and vegetables, let alone the flower you buy or re-ceive
as a present on Valentine’s day.
To picture the interconnectedness of our world think of
the example that the eruption of an until then unknown
Icelandic volcano, which interrupted air travel to and from
Europe, brought flower producers in Kenya to their knees
[1]. Would have you ever imagined that? Thousands and
thousands of kilometres away? This example shows how
our world’s interconnectedness means opportunities for
the developing world, but also threats.
Because of our patterns of consumptions, we Europeans
throw away on average 50% of our food [2], which to a
large extent we buy from the international market. Our
culture of abundance means that supermarkets must re-plenish
their shelves and make them look full to maximum
Everyday Life
Taste the Waste, the documentary
www.tastethewaste.com
[1] “Kenya Flower Industry Hit by Flight Cancellations”, BBC, 10 April 2010
[2] Tastethewaste.com
• The basic rule is to cook regularly at home to avoid that
purchased food deteriorates;
• Plan your meals the next few days in advance to avoid
the purchase of products that you won’t use;
• Use the entire product. For instance, if you buy a whole
chicken you can use the other parts the next day for a
sandwich;
• Food lasts longer if it is stored properly. Remove vegeta-bles
from the plastic bag, before you put the minto the
fridge. Wrap lettuce, asparagus and carrots in a protec-tive
film. Potatoes or oranges can last up to four months
if they are stored dry and cool.
• Almost all foods can be frozen. Bread and baked goods
last for months. Fresh vegetables, meat, fish, cheese and
sausages, sauces, soups and ready meals can be stored
in the freezer and ensure supply for days when no time
is left for coking;
• Smaller leftovers can be frozen and re-utilised for ex-ample
for a quick soup;
• The expiry date is not the same as use-by date. Rice,
pasta, cereals and legumes are still perfectly OK months
after the expiration date of consumption. Also, yogurt
or cottage cheese can be eaten without concern of the
expiration date to the end. If in doubt, trust the appear-ance
of the product and your sense of smell.
• Buy cucumbers, potatoes or bananas with black spots.
These products are not yet ready for the bin, even if they
don’t look perfect!
• Whole wheat bread lasts longer than white bread and
can still be eaten for several more days;
• Avoid ready-made food, it has a very short shelf life and
its production requires large quantities of waste. Better
to prepare your sandwich at home;
• Some shops offer their goods which are near the expira-tion
date at a reduced price, ask your retailer!
• Ask your supermarket to take measures to prevent food
waste. Complain when you see that the fruit and veg-etable
shelves are filled up until the last minute before
the shop closes.
Concrete Development-friendly
Actions to Avoid Food Waste

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