AER’s Youth Regional Network is back! Highlights from the YRN General Assembly 2023

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It’s official: AER’s Youth Regional Network is back! After a couple of years of YRN inactivity, the Assembly of European Regions started a revival process after the Summer Academy 2022, building from the feedback and willingness to be involved from the event’s youth delegates, and from our members’ eagerness to see the YRN coming back.

A successful YRN General Assembly

After a few months of preparations, statutory work, communication and outreach to young people in our member regions (and beyond!) and in youth organisations, we could convene the YRN General Assembly on the 10th of March 2023.

The event gathered around 50 participants, in person in AER’s Brussels office, and online. Most participants were young people joining the new YRN, and we also want to thank Ms Kari Anne Bøkestad Andreassen, Mayor of Nordland County Council and the Youth Coordinators from our member regions in Norway for their attendance, as well as the Youth Coordinators in other member regions for supporting us throughout the process and for appointing youth delegates in the new YRN.

The General Assembly allowed for fruitful presentations and discussions between the YRN members, the candidates to the YRN Presidium, and the AER Secretariat. The young participants already shared a lot of ideas and foreseen activities for the new YRN, and paved the way for co-conducting activities with the AER Secretariat (from participation to youth events to co-organisation of EU projects activities).

We now look forward to the upcoming activities and policy work of the new YRN! The AER Secretariat will engage with the YRN on a regular basis, present them opportunities, and make sure that their work is included in AER’s wider policy work, exchange of best practices and mutual learning activities. Through our institutional work, we will also ensure that the YRN policy recommendations will be advocated for, in front of policy-makers at both regional and European level.

Congratulations to the newly elected YRN Presidium!

The newly elected YRN Presidium. From right to left: Jim, Anette, Sigrun, Daria, Maylinda. Online: Norbert.

The YRN is youth-led, meaning that they develop their own policy recommendations, Thematic Committees (TCs) and capacity-building activities, and that YRN members (aged between 16 and 30 years old) directly elect their own Presidium, equivalent to a Steering Committee. The election of the YRN Presidium took place as part of the YRN General Assembly, and the following candidates were elected:

President: Jim Simonsen Jenssen (Nordland, NO)
1st Vice-President: Anette Amalie Bang (Nordland, NO)
2nd Vice-President: Norbert Nagy (Salaj, RO)
Chair of the TC on Youth Participation & Governance: Sigrun Myrvang (Innlandet, NO)
Chair of the TC on Mental Health & Wellbeing: Daria Sustrietova (Kirovohrad, UA)
Chair of the TC on Gender Equality & Women Empowerment: Maylinda Bajrami (Tirana, AL)