Youth roll up sleeves

TALLINN - The Estonian Foreign Ministry supports the Global Education Network of Young Europeans (GLEN) Estonia 2011 project in order to increase young Estonians’ awareness of the situation in developing nations and to support the participation of five young volunteers this year in development projects in Ethiopia, Kenya, Thailand, South Africa and Georgia, reports news agency LETA. According to Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet, sending young people to work for short periods of time in developing countries is an effective way to increase Estonia’s awareness of the problems present in developing countries and the efforts being made to resolve them.

“The project GLEN Estonia 2011 is the answer to a growing interest among Estonian youth towards volunteer work and developing countries,” said the foreign minister.

“Five volunteers are going to be able to experience working together in a foreign culture and country,” Paet added.
The foreign minister said that this year the volunteers would be participating in a project supporting female entrepreneurs in Ethiopia, HIV/AIDS prevention work in Kenya, developing the Sea Gypsy community in Thailand, making preparations for the climate change conference in South Africa, and a project to develop civil society with the help of the media in Georgia.
Paet stated that the GLEN project gives Estonian citizens’ associations more knowledge of the situation in target countries and of cooperation opportunities as well.

The goal of the Global Education Network of Young Europeans project is to promote solidarity, fairness, and sustainability in young Europeans’ worldviews, using the experience of volunteer work in developing countries to enforce these values. The areas of activity of GLEN’s partner organizations include spreading awareness of the problems in developing countries and also global interdependency and its effects and consequences.

The Foreign Ministry is supporting the GLEN project with 30,000 euros in funding.