05-03-2014/08-03-2014

Laurens Zevenbergen

Raise Youth Voice

 

 

Well uhm.. I'm not that good at writing introductions, so I guess I'll just start somewhere!

This is some kind of resume about what happened at a conference and a comparison to another similar project.

 

In September 2013 I went to a conference in Berlin, called 'Stories That Move'. 41 Youngsters from 9 different countries, discussing Diversity and Discrimination, Wich was founded by the Anne Frank Foundation.

 

From 5 – 8 March 2014 I went to a similar project as Stories That Move, called 'Raise Youth Voice'. The difference: 400 Youngsters from 11 different countries! Unfortunately most of them were French and couldn't speak English... Anyway, there were workshops, discussions about all different kinds of subjects like LHBT rights, Environment and stuff like that, and of course preparing for the festival we'd be hosting in Brussels on Saturday 8th.

 

 

DAY 1.

 

After a long train ride where we got to know eachother a little bit better, our group finally arrived at the trainstation of Namur/Namen-Belgium.

And then we had to wait untill the organisators of Raise Youth Voice came to pick us up and bring us to the Hotel. First Problem: The woman who would pick us up couldn't speak English.

After a little bit of trouble understanding eachother, our luggage was put in a van by people who also didn't speak english and we were still standing in front the train station, wondering what was happening. Eventually the French speaking woman guided us to the bus-stop and we went on our way to the Hotel.

Arrived at the hotel, we immediately noticed it wasn't as beautiful as shown in the pictures on the website. We didn't have any time to get our luggage and were told to go straight to the main hall, where youngsters from some other countries who arrived one or two days earlier already started the workshops. Although we had to go straight to the main hall, we first wanted to put our luggage safely in our rooms and get some lunch which we were promised. Too bad our lunch was just some leftovers... After that, we didn't have a clue what to do next, so we just kind of blended in with the large group of youngsters in the main hall and went to different kind of workshops. Some went to a workshop to prepare the meeting with Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, others just went looking at multiple workshops and I went to the festvial workshop.

We sat together in a different room with about 15 youngsters at the beginning. During the workshop there were a lot of people just walking in and out, so counting wasn't really an option.

The workshop was about the programm of the festival, this group was in charge of how long each workshop of each country would take, when and where it would take place, what they needed and so on. In a short amount of time, the Rainbowcity group discovered we already prepared enough for our workshop when we were at home. We already had our own plans and the stuff we needed for the workshop we would host, so we left the workshop and began preparing other stuff like the Are You Any Different website and the video wich Jet and Jonna were going to make for a contest in The Netherlands.

Somewhere around 8 o'clock it was dinner time (finally). And to be honest.. the food we got was again, really dissapointing. Just some dry pasta without sauce or anything.

Because we were kind of dissapointed by our first impression of the hotel and everything, we decided we would just have fun the next couple of days, no matter what anyone would tell us.

So.. instead of watching soccer like everyone else, we went swimming in the pool!

 

Day 2

 

Yep.. we had to get up early the next morning.

Due to some miscommunication we decided to buy our own breakfast, instead of eating what was being served by the hotel. After breakfast we started the workshop photography, given by Chantal and Gert-Jan, assisted by Jonna, Jet, Maxz and me. We asked the youngsters to take a piece of paper and write down their name, age, country and the one word they thought about when hearing 'Sexual Diversity' and made polaroid pictures of them. Chantal talked about one of her projects as a photographer called 'In Between', and will also use the taken polaroid pictures for her next project.

After the first part of the meeting we had lunch. Luckily this time the lunch was better than the previous one. When we got back to the workshop, my head was being projected on a big screen. The short video documentary of Stories That Move (the project in Berlin), which started with me explaining who I really am, was shown to the youngsters who were at the workshop, and Gert-Jan explained a little bit about the project compared to Raise Youth Voice and the Anne Frank Foundation.

The youngsters were quite curious about Stories That Move and me as a transgender man. Unfortunately everything took longer than expected, because there were a lot of french youngsters who couldn't speak enlish, and we didn't have a professional interpreter. At the end of the workshop some youngsters explained in front of the group why they had chosen this particular word.

Also, during this workshop a part of the Dutch group went to the European Parliament for the meeting with Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament. After a really long bus trip, because the bus driver got lost in Brussels, they finally arrived and got to ask important questions about LGBT Rights (evenutally, at first our question wasn't allowed) unemployment, the situation in Ukrain and stuff like that. I haven't been there myself because only 40 of the 400 youngsters could go, more information can be found at www.areyouanydifferent.com and the Are You Any Different Facebook page.

 

Day 3

 

This was the big day we were waiting for : The trip to the European Parliament with ALL the youngsters!

And again, we had to get up very early in the morning. But luckily knowing we would go to the European Parliament made getting up a little bit easier. After we had breakfast and put our luggage in the buses (With rainbow stripes!) we went to Brussels. During the bus ride we noticed the Dutch people were the only ones who were chatting and laughing together. The rest of the youngsters seemed to be too tired to do anything and just listened to music or fell half-asleep. Our bus driver didn't get lost this time, but still, we didn't make it in time and kinda had to hurry. Wich wasn't very easy because we had to go trough security scans and stuff, all registered by name. At first I kinda worried about showing my ID-card, because my old name is still on it, and the picture doesn't really look like me anymore. Luckily they didn't even seem to notice something wasn't really right, and i just went trough to the security gates. Everything was being checked and scanned, in order to prevent something bad would happen. After all the youngsters got trough the security checks without any problems and we were instructed not to push the microphone button we all had, because the camera's would focus on the person who pushes the button, we went into the really big room with hundreds of chairs, about 15 camera's and our group got to sit at the front and center! We kinda expected some kind of debate between youngsters about important subjects, but instead a couple of youngsters performed some kind of play at the front. Mostly about unemployment. Some youngsters were allowed to participate in the play, to see what would happen (in the world) when things would go exactly as they said it had to happen. And ofcourse every once in a while one of the youngsters was shown on the screen at front of the room, because they had pushed the microphone button. When the play was finished we had little time to ask some questions to Marc Tarabella, one of the members of the European Parliament.

 

When a couple youngsters had asked their question and received a really long answer, we ran completely out of time and had to hurry to our next appointment. Because instead of walking the Youth Pride with all the other yongsters, we went to two members of the LGBT Intergroup of the European Parliament! We talked about what was being discussed about LGBT/human rights with the European Parliament right now and why it wasn't an important topic to the other members of the European Parliament. Also, Evert Jan (one of the members of the LGBT Intergroup) joined Chantal's project and wrote, just like the youngsters, his name, age, country and the one word wich popped into his mind while thinking about Sexual Diversity. The word he wrote in Dutch was #Vrijheid. Wich means Freedom.

Too bad we ran out of time very soon because we were a bit late, due to the session with Marc Tarabella.When we left the European Parliament, we went looking for our Hostel in Brussels, because we switched from a hotel in Namur, to a hostel in Brussels. It took a lot longer than expected because we were given the wrong directions. Somewhere around 5. Pm we finally arrived at our Hostel after multiple rides with the metro and a really long time walking. At first we couldn't get into our rooms because we were told the rooms weren't paid yet. Eventually the rooms appeared to be paid and we could finally get our luggage wich was already brought to the hostel.

After putting our luggage in our new rooms, claiming beds and resting for a little while, it was time for dinner and we had to go to the center of Brussels. We got 'food coupons' wich gave us some discount, but it wasn't much so we decided to go to the Mac Donalds instead of a restaurant or something. When we finished our dinner, we still had enough time for some fun in Brussels, so we went (as an LGBT organisation ofcourse.) to one of the gay bars in Brussels! The best thing: We could drink alcohol! In my case, beer. Wich isn't allowed anymore till 18 in the Netherlands. After a really nice evening we had to get to the metro-station to avoid missing our last metro to the hostel. And guess what happened, we missed it! Why? Well.. we found out we could go trough the security gates faster (and cheaper) if we held the little doors open. A policeman noticed what we were doing and gave us a warning. So.. we missed our last metro. What now? The late night bus wasn't an option, so we had to take a cab. When we finally got into the cabs, one of the cab drivers turned out to be a scammer and we had to get out, walk back and get another cab. Eventually we got back to the hostel a bit later than expected, but with really awesome memories and stories to tell.

 

Day 4

 

Another day getting up early. Today was our last day at Raise Youth Voice in Brussels.

Today, we would host the festival. When we arrived we were a bit dissapointed it wasn't as big as we thought it would be. Instead of a big festival it was just some tents set up at a square. But we still managed to make a really fun day out of it. We gave the same photography workshop as two days earlier, for the whole group of youngsters and everyone who was interested. And we held a little debate about sexual diversity. If people agreed with one of the statements, they would hold up a green piece of paper and if they disagreed they would hold hup a red piece of paper. Too bad the microphone wasn't really working properly, there weren't a lot of people who wanted to participate and we didn't have a interpreter at first.. But still, we had fun. After a couple of hours being at the festival, some people of our group had already left and were on their way home. So after some time we decided to leave as a group together and say goodbye to everyone. Although we didn't really have enough time to meet people from other countries the previous days, there were still some people we were really going to miss when we would be home. After saying goodbye (three times), it was time to go. We got on our train, and during the train ride our group got smaller and smaller, and evenutally I also had to leave to get the train to my own city.

 

 

 

 

After being seperated from the group, you begin to think about everything that happened the last couple of days. Before we were in Namur and Brussels our expectations were really high, while being at the project a lot of things seemed dissapointing, but when you start to look back at everything we still managed to do as a group and as induvidiuals at the meeting, you discover it is in fact quite big. We all have different stories to tell about the meeting, but all of our stories also have positive sides and awesome memories.

 

Compared to Stories That Move, Raise Youth Voice was way bigger, but also very badly organised.

At Stories That Move you really got to know people from other countries, and at Raise Youth Voice you remained at your own group or country most of the time.

 

But after all, both of the projects were really interesting, informative, and especially really fun.

I guess I can say both of them changed something in me and in others who participated in either one of them. You get the feeling that even though you're young, you can still do something to change at least a little part of the world, or about the way people think about things. And that is a really important thing. You don't have to do or think big, every little thing you say or do, can affect or change something. And in the end everybody's opinion should be treated equal, no matter sexual orientation, gender, amount of money, their stories or whatever. Because in the end... Are you any different?