The Night of the Seven Antennae, the AEGEE-Europe project that connected the AEGEE locals in seven different European cities in April 2015, has been selected as national winner of the Charlemagne Youth Prize 2016 in Bulgaria, represented by AEGEE-Sofia.
The Bulgarian jury, formed by the Members of the European Parliament Eva Paunova (EPP), Svetoslav Malinov (EPP), Momchil Nekov (S&D) and Angel Dzhambazki (ECR), and Alexander Ivanov (Bulgarian National Youth Forum),unanimously chose the Night of the Seven Antennae out of the eight projects submitted, as “it encourages understanding between peoples and facilitates the exchange of ideas between young people from different countries. According to them, the project shows that “there are no borders for motivated people with an interesting idea”.
Putting a united Europe into practice
The Night of the Seven Antennae is a project under the framework of AEGEE’s 30th Anniversary, which brought together seven events held in seven different cities in Europe: Aachen, Leiden, Bergamo, Catania, Eskisehir, Kyïv and Sofia. Each of the cities hosted a conference from the 17th to the 19th of April 2015, under the overarching theme ‘Europe in me – me in Europe’. The event reached its momentum on the night of the 18th of April, where a live broadcast among the seven cities took place in order to share their observations and conclusions for the conference.
The project sent a very powerful message by connecting young people from seven cities under a common celebration, commemorating the past of AEGEE and Europe while looking up to what the future holds, cooperating among youth and putting AEGEE-Europe’s idea of a united, borderless Europe into practice. The Night of the Seven Antennae recreated the legendary conference ‘EGEE II – Nuits de l’Europe’ (Nights of Europe) from 1986, when seven cities were connected in a live TV broadcast while showcasing cultural activities, debates and high-level speeches and marked one of the highlights of the history of AEGEE.
The European Charlemagne Youth Prize
The European Charlemagne Youth Prize is organised jointly by the European Parliament and the Charlemagne Foundation, and awards projects whose creators are aged between 16 and 30 years old. The projects submitted mustpromote European and international understanding, support a shared sense of European identity and integration, serve as a model for young people living in Europe and offer practical examples of Europeans living as one community.
The European jury consists of three Members of the European Parliament, the President of the European Parliament and the Charlemagne Foundation, who will choose the final winners from the 28 representatives selected in every EU country. The prize for the best project is 5,000 EUR, the second prize is 3,000 EUR and the third prize is 2,000 EUR. Representatives of the 28 selected national projects will be invited to the award ceremony in Aachen, on the 3rd of May 2016.
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