The idea of bringing AEGEE to Lisboa started during a Ljubljana-Beograd exchange, in May2005 during my Erasmus period. Since then I actively participated on SU Ljubljana, Guca exchange in Serbia and SU Chisinau.

 

The first step was to gather some friends, most of them with international experiences, and start to work on the internal structure of the antenna, the starting up official procedure and, most importantly, to build the vision of AEGEE, understand what does it stand for and what can we do about it.

 

On November2005 we had our first official project presentation to the University of Lisboa that promised to help but took several months to answer back. So we were experiencing the beginning problems of a project this size. 

 

Today, the Antenna has around 20 members from all different areas of study and includes two International Students: Katja Kaluza (Ljubljana) and (Poznan)
This academic year was used to develop the antenna infrastructure in order to built a solid AEGEE Lisboa with strong basis.
The membership was free of charge, motivating people to be active within the organization.

These members are organized in workgroups coordinated by one elected responsible and, at this initial phase, everyone belongs to every department.
We all work on an email basis - as Lisboa is a very big city - and we have been meeting at least every week.
We created a wide communication network linking together the departments, Lisboa and Porto, Lisboa and the passive members and Lisboa and International contacts.
These international contacts have been updated periodically and the Antenna president has visited personally several of them (as Ljubljana, Paris and Beograd). 

How many event have you done in 2005/2006 season and their names?

Starting strong:
From December2005 on, AEGEE Lisboa has been developing several internal and external activities, starting by our unofficial new year's eve, in Ericeira 20 min from Lisboa by the beach.
We gathered around 20 people from Portugal, Italy, Spain, Finland, Denmark, France and Germany. The event lasted 3 days but there was a 2 days pre-event in Lisboa and another 2 days pre-event in Porto.
These brought many new members to the antenna and became a big motivation for their active status.

Promoting Europe:
In cooperation with the Slovene-Portuguese culture association, we promoted the Slovene film festival and the Slovene carnival in Lisboa, as well as the 4th of February Balkan Day, promoting the East-West relation and teaching Portuguese people on these European cultures and traditions.
We plan to have a monthly European day, evolving the Erasmus community and enlightening Portuguese students on the diverse and rich European traditions.
We will have here, in October, the shooting Europe AEGEE film festival.

Official meetings and workshops:
Although unfortunately we couldn't participate in our region's event in Salamanca on March, we have had many external contacts, first with Ljubljana when the AEGEE Lisboa president went to this city to meet the antenna, in April 2006, and reflect on the AEGEE vision and learn with them; with AEGEE Paris, meeting them in the beginning of June.
Also we had many international visitors: Vaggelis (from the board), Luis (netcommie from the far west region) - that were here for the official presentation of AEGEE Lisboa at Universidade Lusófona; Francesco Muratore (from AEGEE-Torino), Magdalena (from AEGEE-Poznan), Katja Kaluza (from AEGEE-Ljubljana) - That were here as SOCRATES students and were collaborating with our antenna, promoting several internal workshops. We had several unofficial visitors, from all over Europe that came to visit the city and meet the antenna. 

Summer University 2006:
Although we had several logistic problems, as AEGEE is still not known in our country, we organized an 8 days event in Lisboa that gathered students from Russia, Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, Nederland, etc ..
The idea was to reflect debate and produce a perspective of European citizenship and related matters (see booklet sketch attached). It worked out great, the group was very good to work with and very easy going (the selection of the participants wasn't easy).   
We visited the city, debated almost everyday a different subject in coffees, gardens and other public spaces. The activities were made for all tastes, from the outside bars to the clubs, the beautiful beach to the hills of sintra, we had everything.
There was a big effort on the promotion of our culture, bringing the participants to the historical places, the Fado house, the castle, the poet's coffee, etc, 
I believe the swimming pool in the AEGEE camping site had success and made the participants very fresh in the morning.
We had a great support from AEGEE Porto that was with us on the planning and preparation, during the event and, themselves, had a pre and post non official event. Thank you Porto and specially João Simões.

What are the difficulties that you have faced in 2006? (human resources, economically politically, sponsorships or anything else you have faced as problem)

 

As AEGEE was starting now in our country that have never heard about this association, we had a lot of work on explaining this student association philosophy, motivating people to come to the meetings (specially during the exam season) and regarding the large city that Lisboa is, we had problems on having a middle place to have the week meetings.

From January on we had around 20 members, but almost all of them finishing their courses at faculty, with few time to spend.
The legalization was a problem, as the University hasn’t supported us much. We have now a workgroup responsible on these juridical issues, as well as on building up our structure, within AEGEE Europe suggestions.
Sponsorship was zero, except some we got for our SU. Though, now people heard about us and are more receptive to us this year.

I have to say how complicated it was to arrive to Lisboa in September, write down the AEGEE vision I got, spreading the word, first European contacts, building up the antenna, designing structures and networks, motivating people, supporting the spirit for good and bad times, bringing the AEGEE Lisboa idea all over Europe, building up a relevant work within Summer University that was born like a Guinness world record, against all deadlines and all odds.
But we did it and we have opened the European AEGEE door to Lisboa, on the best we could do.   

What do you think you best and biggest achievement so far as AEGEE local?

SU2006 - the vision of AEGEE within the European Perspective of coffees, by George Steiner.

This was the answear to an enquiry made by Gokhan Bozkurt for the article in Key to Europe 2005/06. If you need any extra information, feel free to ask.

 

Best wishes to all. See you around Europe.
--
Joäo Pita Costa 

Former President and Founder of AEGEE Lisboa                                  
                          
phone: +351 934207064            
email: joaopitacosta@gmail.com

skype:  joaopitacosta