Celje is the third biggest city of Slovenia with a bit less than 50.000 inhabitants. From 10th to 18th September sixteen young men and women representing fifteen Catholic Youth Organisations gathered there together for the European Congress.
Present were Simon Fischer (AKH Germany), Rosana Balanescu & Paul-Cristian Sopon (ASTRU Cluj Romania), Oscar Paul Ngai (FUCI & MSAC Italy*), Edouard Karoue (IMCS), Fa. Charles Menezes (IYCS), Estelle Cimino & Cecile Sagna (JEC France & JEC Spain*), François Chatellier (JEC Luxembourg), Jan Szypulski (KIK Drum Bun Poland), Miriam Röcker (KSJ Germany & EKNE Greece*), Mariana Ribeiro de Sousa Ferreira & Francisco Manuel Cordeiro Ferreira (MCE Portugal & EKFE Greece*), and Tina Hocevar, Martin Nahtigal & Špela Pucelj (SKAM Slovenia).
(* delegated votes)
The first days of the Congress were used to welcome the participants, get to know each other, exchange about individual experiences and work on the new orientation guidelines 2017-2020 that also included a reflection of the former OGs and the reality of youth, church and society in today´s Europe.
Thanks to the work of the present delegates during the whole week (incl. statutory part) we achieved several outcomes:
Orientation Guidelines 2017-2020
Application for Summerweek 2017
Budget 2017
Info-Paper “Church and Youth Policy Involvment”
Proposed modifications on the Statutes
Song “Youth are the future”
On the last day of the Congress we had the opportunity the join the National Youth Event “Sticna mladih” which was the highlight of this week, where we met lots of beautiful people including the President of Slovenia, Borut Pahor.
We want to give an extraordinary THANK YOU to SKAM Slovenia and the staff of the Saint Joseph Monastery, who hosted us, cared for us and made this stay such an exciting and comfortable one.