Because organisational work easily draws attention to current challenges and future planning, every now and then at JEF Turku we like to turn our gaze to the past too, and look at what these past decades have held.
Last year we celebrated JEF Turku’s 20th anniversary. At the time, we asked our former activists what had particularly stuck with them from their JEF Turku years. Those memories can be read in our Instagram highlights. We got a good number of responses, and it was wonderful to see that for many, their JEF Turku years left behind plenty of good memories, as well as skills they later found they needed.
What was also great about the responses was how much was recognisable in them. Although plenty has of course changed over the years, current activities have a lot in common with those from ten years ago. For instance, Eero Jalava (board member 2011-2014) mentioned that one of JEF Turku’s great strengths was the combination of the serious and the less serious. That idea still guides how we build our event calendar today. Last year, as events coordinator, it was great to organise both webinars with MEPs and relaxed evenings at Panimoravintola Koulu. JEF Turku is a mix of even challenging debate about Europe and relaxed, bonding time together.
Over the years, excursions have also become a fixed part of JEF Turku’s annual calendar. Ronja Marjamaa (President in 2016) named organising the first excursion as one of her best JEF Turku memories. After the travel pause caused by the pandemic, JEF Turku members were finally able to continue the tradition. In recent years, trips have taken us to Munich as well as to the heart of Europe, Brussels. International connections reaching across borders were, in the minds of many alumni, among JEF Turku’s greatest gifts, and that is surely still true today. For example, an encounter with JEF Brussels during the last excursion sparked the idea of a joint event for local JEF branches from across Europe, and this spring, under our Turku members’ lead, regional organisations from other countries gathered together to discuss the opportunities and challenges of our work.
A lot has also changed. Last year we launched working group activities for the first time, because we wanted to give our members more opportunities to take part in JEF Turku’s work and active projects without having to commit to board work. This year, the excursion working group was joined by planning evenings open to everyone. In these, interested members have the chance to influence the programme content and other elements of our biggest events. The working groups and planning evenings offer a low-threshold way for anyone with even a passing interest in European affairs to get involved, so hopefully they will become an established part of JEF Turku’s activities going forward!
This spring, JEF Turku organised the Youth Europe Day event for the second time – and once again very successfully. We invited a wide range of political youth organisations to this day-long public event, with panels and discussions on the programme. It was wonderful to celebrate Europe Day by bringing forward exactly the youth perspective on issues where that perspective has too often been left badly in the shadows. The event had a unified, warm atmosphere, which in its own way also gives hope for the future of politics. This event, too, absolutely deserves to become a tradition in the future.
At the same time, this year we’ve thought a lot about what we’d like JEF Turku to look like in the future. We’d like to be an even lower-threshold organisation, one that attracts more upper secondary and university of applied sciences students, for example. The school visits continuing this year serve, in part, as a tool for this, but new approaches are needed too. In the future, we hope JEF Turku will be an even more diverse and approachable platform for absolutely all young people with even a passing interest in European themes.
Although much has been done – and much remains to be done – what comes through above all in the memories of former JEF Turku members is that our core idea remains the same. Sparking critical and diverse debate about Europe, increasing interest in these themes, and bringing forward young people’s voice on EU issues remain important goals for us. There’s enough work to be done here for at least the next 20 years too.
Text: Oona Vehmas, Vice President for 2023