From the 2nd to the 5th August 2013, the European Humanist Youth Days (EHYD) will bring young people from across Europe together in Brussels for a major conference exploring the ideas and visions of youth for the future.
Funded by deMens.nu, Centre d'Action Laique, the EACEA programme and others, and in partnership with the the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) and our youth section IHEYO, the European Humanist Youth Days' programme features speakers including Sophie in't Veld @SophieintVeld (Member of the European Parliament and 2011 International Humanist Award winner), Aubrey de Grey @aubreydegrey (Chief Science Officer of the SENS Research Foundation), Pieter Bonte (Bioethics Institute Ghent), Hilde Braet (photographer) and Philipp Blom (historian and author).
There are workshops on graffiti and human rights, theatre, and the psychology of cold reading. There are social and cultural activities including a visit to a chocolate factory, the Magritte Museum, and experiencing the delicacy of Belgian fries, ending with a party on the final night.
It's a conference organised by members of Humanist youth groups for young people and here's their vision for the conference:
It is often said that young people will shape the world of tomorrow. We can all agree it is a commendable statement. However, what if we perform a reality check? The way we look at it, youth as a constituency is often left out of decision making processes.
Instead of paying lip service to youth participation, the voice of young people should be reflected in the way society develops in the course of time. Of course, that voice needs to be legitimized, it should be strengthened and educated, and it has to be subjected to feedback from others.
With the ongoing ecological, social, economical and institutional crises in mind, a critical appraisal of youth on these challenges is direly needed. A group of young people in Belgium got together to see how we can develop this outlook. Hailing from a humanist background, we think it is an excellent opportunity to bring youth from all over Europe together at a conference to discuss these matters from a humanist perspective.
Therefore it is the right time for humanistic youth to think about the future, to discover the richness of each perspective, to congregate with other humanists for discussion and fun, to discover the culture at Brussels and to put the humanistic youth into the spotlight…
You can register to attend at http://www.ehyd.eu/european-humanist/register-here.