International Youth Exchanges Central Europe - Southeast Europe as Contribution to Reconciliation and Lasting Peace in Europe

OUR AIM

After a conflict, doctors try to save the wounded, food is distributed, and emergency housing is put up - because people in war zones need help quickly in order to survive. But can conflicts be avoided? Why do people resort to murder and drive others out of their homes? And who can bring those, who have engaged in such bitter fighting, back together?

In Europe, political leaders have been working for decades to build and strengthen the European Union. This voluntary union is the basis for peaceful coexistence in Europe and has been successful – but not everywhere. Not in ex-Yugoslavia, Cyprus, Northern Ireland, or in the Basque country. People continue to live in these countries after peace treaties have been signed, but hatred, prejudice and economic poverty still foster old enmities.

This is where the work of CAMPUS15 starts: CAMPUS15 invites young people from conflict areas aged between 15 and 16 to summer camps, together with young people from Germany and other European countries. Last year in Königswinter, summer camp participants came from Bosnia und Herzegovina, Croatia, Germany, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Poland, and Serbia.

WHAT WE DO

Since 1998, eight summer camps and one training seminar for youth workers from Central and South East Europe have been carried out in the Rhineland, and six reunion camps and one evaluation meeting have taken place in the Balkans. In addition in 2009 an open invitation meeting was conducted for everybody, who ever has taken part in projects of CAMPUS15.

In the summer camps, trust building is a main element whereas in the reunion camps, the focus is on social projects to help the disadvantaged. As a third step, after the Summer Camp and the Reunion, we encourage and help the participants, now about 18 years old, to organize their own follow-up meeting.  

In our work, we make it possible for young people, over a three-year period, to work together across former areas of conflict towards a peaceful Europe. The work of CAMPUS15 focus on the successor states of former Yugoslavia because, without a European perspective, young people living in that region will not be confident that they can coexist peacefully in future. At CAMPUS15, they recognize the important role that European integration has played and is still playing in securing peace, partly by experiencing first-hand how young Europeans from the Netherlands, Poland and Germany – countries on opposite sides in old conflicts – interact today.   

HOW OUR PROJECTS ARE FUNDED
We are supported by donations and membership fees, as well as by the European Union Programme “Youth in Action” and the Youth Welfare Office of North Rhine-Westphalia, if applications for funding are successful. All members of CAMPUS15 are volunteers, so 100% of each donation is invested in our work towards peace.

ABOUT CAMPUS15

The organization was founded in 1997 and is registered in Siegburg. CAMPUS15 is a non-profit organization, officially recognized as a youth welfare organization, and not affiliated with any political or religious institutions.
We feel honoured to have received the following awards:
2001: The Special Award of the Rhine-Sieg district for Voluntary Work and International Understanding.
2003: The Bilz Prize (Cologne) for International Understanding.
2005: The Rhine-Sieg Prize for the Promotion of Sport, for exemplary social work.
2009: The first time presented European Civic-Prize of the European Parliament