Visa Freedom Working Group

Basic information

Main aims and tasks:

• Striving against visa within Europe
• Providing travellers with useful tips for applying for VISA from and to the countries of the geographic Europe
• Supporting the mobility of youngsters in Europe and its neighbouring countries
• Informing youngsters (students of universities, members and representatives of youth organisations, including Summer University students, Erasmus and other studying programmes‘ students and interns) about the visa regulations (and obligations after the arrival) in different countries
• Discussing about the newest “visa topics” that have appeared in Europe and their influence on everyday lives of European inhabitants, as well as us who are fighting for a Europe without borders
• Helping the above mentioned target groups and others to get a visa or residence permit, by communicating with the authorities and the contact people (volunteers) in that country (in case of any problems)
• Providing help to Incoming Teams with the distribution of information about ‘visa countries’ during events in Europe
• Providing thematic support for events and a knowledge platform for visa responsible members and being a supporting body of the Network when it comes to visa issues
• “Fighting“ and lobbying for the simplification, clarification, and transparency of the whole visa procedure (and residence permit „hunt“ after the arrival), against time consumption, exaggerated prices, bribery and lack of language skills of officers at the Foreign Police Departments, embassies or consulates, and for the possible complete cancellation of the visa obligation for the target group
• Developing projects and activities on the topic of visas and visa fees abolition, equal rights in visa procedures and information providing
• Facilitating the granting of visas to AEGEE members, through raising the awareness of embassies from the Schengen countries and other target countries of the possibilities offered by AEGEE events to visa appliers

Activities:

• Creating and printing a catchy info booklet about AEGEE, which would underline how AEGEE fosters “Schengen values” like democracy, human rights, cultural exchange, active citizenship, and youth participation and distributing this booklet translated in the proper language to different embassies
• Creating postcards for the participants in different AEGEE events to send to the embassies that issued their visas
• Contributing to AEGEE’s online magazine,”The AEGEEan”, with articles and news about what happens in our Network
• Creating a new logo for the Visa Freedom Working Group, with the slogan “Freedom of movement for the place we call home.”
• Creating a new human resources strategy
• Encouraging locals to get in touch with the official bodies of the government dealing with visa issues, in order to present our organisation and to gather as much information on visa policies as possible
• Organising workshops (during different events), visits (of neighbour antennae), seminars (at universities), conferences (in cooperation with official bodies)

History:

Once we had a dream of a borderless Europe. Visas were some of the biggest borders in that dream and even though many borders are now in ruins, visas still exist… Quite often visa application procedures harm morally and economically and only by experiencing this it becomes clear that visas are borders against our freedom. But ‘freedom of movement’ is one of the basic human rights and that is what we want to support.

Our vision is to provide freedom of mobility to all students and youngsters in Europe, and our mission is to strive against visas within Europe, to support AEGEE members with their visa issues and AEGEE-Europe in its lobby against visas, so that all of us can travel freely and without any problems.