In October, a group of youth workers from Lower Franconia in Bavaria travelled to Greece to meet and share experiences with youth workers in Greece. The cooperation began at the end of 2017 and was organized by the Regional Youth Council of Lower Franconia and the Bavarian Youth Council, the Pan-Hellenic Youth Workers' Association and the Greek NGO FILOXENIA. Discussions continued also in the capital of Greece, Athens. The exchange was summed up by Christian Gündling.
The return visit of the group, consisting of the Regional Youth Council of Lower Franconia and the Lower Franconia Youth Education Center/JUBI, the JUKUZ - Youth & Culture Center of the City of Aschaffenburg, the Juz Rottendorf and the FTW-Freie Turner Würzburg, led them to meet organizations of the Greek civil society. Among them, the youth center of Kalamata (KANE – Social Youth Development), the Ger-Mani project in the south Peloponnese and the Art Farm/ Agritourism - Culture Center.
They then travelled to Athens to have a discussion with the Ministry of Education - General Secretariat for Youth. The goal of the meeting was to initiate a cooperation of the German-Greek Youth Office. Greek Youth workers, together with the Lower Franconia Youth Education center and other partners from Bavaria, are looking forward to fostering the bilateral German-Greek cooperation in youth projects. At the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs we also had a conversation with Ilias Antoniou, co-author of the strategy for youth, Ioulia Pyrrou, advisor of the Secretary General for youth, and Natasa Protopsalti, responsible for setting up the German-Greek Youth Office. Together, we were able to discuss the history and advantages of a DGJW.
The Panhellenic youth work, represented by Filaretos Vourkos from the Youth Work Association, Alexis Zafeiris from the Youth Hostel Organization “HiGreece” and Panos Poulos from FILOXENIA have high expectations for the planned youth work. They are confident that funds will be provided for the first time in the area of the youth work. The aim is to structure youth work with Youth Councils. Seven days later, we reencountered at the Ministry of Education, at the Research and Religious Affairs Department. This meeting contributed to initializing the German-Greek Youth Office.
Andre Weinrich from Mobile Youth Work in Aschaffenburg was impressed by the enormous hospitality and the beautiful Peloponnesian nature. Christian Gündling from the Lower Franconia Regional Youth Council was particularly impressed by the young people trinational (Poland, Greece and Germany) project in Kryoneri. During the project they cleared the path to a cave in which a Jewish family was hidden by the villagers in 1943: "This is a memory work that I find very important in German-Greek cooperation," he said.