Pinewood Student Participates in the European Youth Parliament

After being selected out of 126 students from schools all over Thessaloniki, I became part of the European Youth Parliament of Greece. On March 28th the Greek European Youth Parliament flew to Luxembourg for Luxembourg’s 2nd National Selection Conference.  Being part of the FEMM Committee our topic was Addressing, Eliminating and Responding to Gender Based Violence. Some of the fundamental points made were creating “safe houses” for men, and of course educating people and strengthening the justice system that handles the perpetrators. A significant point risen during debate was that being part of the FEMM Committee means giving gravity to men’s situation as well as women’s because despite the notion patriarchy that everyone is fighting against many forget that men are also objectified and society has a set of expectations for them too, such as being “manly”.  Our committee’s resolution was one of the few that passed and was regarded as one of the most successful in the whole General Assembly. What was more successful of all however was meeting people from all over Europe like Germany, Lithuania, Spain, Bosnia and many more countries. For four consecutive days we lived under the same roof, ate together, traveled around the city, shared our opinions and ideas and challenged ourselves! The European Youth Parliament even though has no direct influence on the decisions taken by the actual European Parliament has an influence on the youth who are tomorrow’s global leaders. This experience was one that I would recommend to every single student because it changes your worldview and gives voice to the thoughts in your head that you often are afraid to express.
 Galini Poimenidou, ’16