Project description of the
Transylvanian Community College 2001
- by the Transylvania committee of the ACC

Summary

The ACC is going to carry through two-week community college courses for each 50 young Europeans, engaged in NGO’s relevant for the topics of the courses. The aim of the course is in accordance with the general aims of the ACC to stimulate a common European debate on questions and political problems shared by the Europeans. The Transylvanian community college is going to deal with the future perspectives of the Central-Eastern-European minorities in the context of the EU enlargement. The course developed for Transylvania is going to be a showcase of the general strategy of the ACC, creating more Community colleges for an Open Europe.

Background in general

Europeans have realized the existence of questions which are not to be solved inside a system of states all having sovereignty in all questions. A certain development has then characterized the history after the Second World War. Sovereignties among states have been loosened and discussions take now place in super-nation-states forums as well as in the nation-states forums. More and more people can imagine a system of states less defined in accordance with national borders. The European capitals former the centers of discussions now have to realize that they are both centers and periphery. The discussions have, unfortunately, not only moved horizontally (to Brussels, Strasbourg etc) and in many directions. The discussions have also moved vertically. Most of us are not participants in the definite discussions. They are much more run by professionals, by officials, most not even elected, and we don’t even know their names. Moreover, we do not know the parties discussing, those parties our state-politicians meet in discussions, we don’t know their points of view and we don’t know the contexts of these points of view.

Those in power in this system (the voters of the citizens) do not know, with whom they are talking. In such a system it is a permanent temptation for those in decision and for those giving voice to public opinion to make these mysterious unknown dialogue-partners into scapegoats and culprits in problems belonging in reality to domestic affairs.

It is a necessity that the Europeans know much more about each other, that we understand the backgrounds of the points of views presented in the different forums and of the representatives of the different states, and it is important that we understand which cultural values the populations want to preserve and to be respected. It is important to discuss which values should be considered common among Europeans.

In short a common European public and permanent discussion is needed. This ”community” based on common questions should not only be a professional one.

Background in specific

The enlargement of the EU means probably that problems of insecurity -economically, culturally and in matters of security policy- are on their way to be solved. On the other hand the dialogue deficit described is going to be enlarged as well. As far as we can see, the urgent need for dialogue among common Europeans is going to be even more important, when East- and Central European Countries are going to be full members of the EU. There is an extreme gap when it comes to knowledge between East and West on political systems, cultural affiliations and economical conditions. The gap is partly still defined by the old iron curtain between East and West. The mental wall still exists.

A special case in the wider context of the EU-enlargement, which should be made commonly known in all Europe, is the Transylvanian one. The age-old multicultural region, Transylvania, is one of the areas facing a new era of insecurity, when surrounding countries are to be members of the EU, while Romania is not exactly first in line. The leading questions of the Transylvania Community College are then: which difference is the EU-enlargement going to make for the Central- and East-European cultural and national minority populations.
This question may be put in many contexts:
Changes in the political landscape,
Changes in the juridical sphere,
Changes in matters of cultural belongings,
Changes of the importance of borderlines between countries,
Changes in the thinking of minorities’ importance as potential political actors,
Changes in the philosophical ways of thinking human rights questions etc.

The object of the Transylvania Community College Course

The ACC Transylvania committee is going to arrange and carry through the Transylvania Community College Course in June-July 2001 at the Reformat church school in Szekelyudvarhely/Odorheiu, Romania, in order to let young active NGO-members of all Europe become familiar with the case Transylvania and in order to raise the debate on specific questions relevant for South and Eastern Europe, especially Transylvania, in the context of the EU-enlargement.

The Transylvania Community College is going to be an excellent way for young NGO-members to create new contacts and to start working independent of borders. We are thinking of not only borders between states, but also the mental borders between the European populations, between language groups, between cultures and between nations.

The ACC Transylvania committee is consisting primarily of Hungarians, but it is a task in itself to involve youth of other nations inside Romania in the preparatory work and in the carrying out of the course. The course should in itself be a showcase of practicing cross-national co-operation. 

By organizing the Transylvania Community College Course we hope to be part of a general tendency of promoting the idea of letting the citizens take initiative by themselves. In short, we would like to be a part of developing the civil society of our region, even though we are representing only a small piece of a large context.

The utmost consequence of working for dialogue between the different identities of Europe in general and among particular identities in Transylvania in specific would hopefully be a more peaceful 21 century compared with the catastrophes Europe has created for itself in the previous century.

Further we hope to involve participants in the work done by the ACC, hopefully through membership and by enlarging the circle of Young Europeans working for an enlightened, non-chauvinist and common debate among European citizens.

Target group.

It is crucial for us to find representatives of many European identities. There should be no dominating groups and we want the groups constituting the “Transylvanian Community College Course” to be an International one.

There should be a balanced representation of both genders, many nations, representation from north and south, as well as from east, west and central Europe.

The participants of the course will be selected in close cooperation with the local members of the ACC.

To participate English must be understood and spoken

We aim to receive 50 participants of whom 10 are expected to be local/national NGO-leaders or -members. Application-forms are going to be prepared and evaluated by the ACC board and the ACC Transylvania committee.

The contents of the course.

The course will last two weeks. Participation in the course includes room and board at the Reformat church school in Szekelyudvarhely/Odorheiu, Transylvania. The boarding school format is supposed to make discussions much more serious, since it is our experience, that living, eating, discussing and learning together under the very same roof is simply stimulating and guaranteeing the seriousness of debates. Through this, we expect the participants to obtain an understanding of and a respect for the European diversity 
  
First week: The first week of the course is dedicated an instruction in the general political context of nowadays Europe, which is supposed to influence the general feeling of security and hope for the future of the inhabitants of Transylvania. Important for the context is the EU-enlargement process, the Council of Europe Framework convention on national minorities, the charter elaborated currently on the basic rights of the EU-citizens, the new treaty of Nice (probably) and the overall juridical strive between cultural entities rights vs. individual’s rights.

Second week: The second week of the course is going to be fixed on the Central-East European political sphere. There is going to be thorough lectures on the political field as seen from a local point of view. We are going to invite representatives of both the political entities representing minorities and representatives of the political life not defined by ethnic, linguistic or national borders.

Methodology: The programme is prepared with lectures, excursions, socialising games (by the ACC) and workshops. It is important to invite representatives of local NGO’s and local politicians affected by the changed political agenda just as representatives of the EU-commission office. The ACC has good experiences in organizing socializing games and role plays. In accordance with the philosophy of the ACC, we are counting the boarding school format as one of the most important methodological details.

Timetable.

The course is going to last for two weeks and will take place from June 24th to July 8th in summer 2001. We expect the course to be repeated in the following years and we hope to include more institutions in Europe in the process of developing more community colleges for an open Europe.

Organizational elements.

Two coordinators, Agota Illyes and Barna Kovacs, will be responsible for the carrying out and the planning of the course. Together with Laszlo Dani, deputy chairperson of the ACC, they constitute the Transylvania committee (in accordance with § 14 of the ACC statutes). The enterprise and the economical responsibility belong to the ACC.

We are going to investigate possible involvement in the system ECTS (European Council Transfer System) to allow eventual students to accumulate “points”.

The course language will be English

Financing.

We expect the project to be co-financed by the European Council (EYF, European Youth Foundation), the Youth-programme of the EU (Youth for Europe, YFE), local funds and the participants themselves.  The development and the preparations are partly contributions given by the ACC. There is going to be a fee for taking part in the course.

Location.

The course is going to be carried out at the Reformat church school in Szeklyudvarhely/Odorheiu, Transylvania.

Program:

Details settled and lecturers chosen later

Multiplying effect /follow up.

Addresses on main information sources presented by the participants during the course, are to be uploaded to a website on the Internet, as a permanent resource for the participants also in the future. The participants of the courses are invited to be members of the ACC. 
It is a main vision of ACC-members most of whom have already taken part in Community College Courses that many more Europeans should have the chance of participating in an international/European course some time in her/his life. This is going to make it easier to establish another course in the following year and to take up new initiatives in the future.

We would like to stress, that the community college course idea is in itself an effect of multiplicity. The basic idea of the ACC-members is, that many more Europeans should have the chance to take part in community college courses (common European courses on common issues), just as the members have had the chance themselves. Please confer the www.acc.eu.org to find material on the basic ideas and common experiences of the ACC-members. Please confer also the www.people.hojoster.dk to find the common experience of most of the ACC-members.

It is an important part of the project to be able to manifold the idea of making common European courses on common matters, to keep the network existing, which is supposed to result from the boarding school course and to make it possible for the participants to use each others experiences and contacts for future common ideas. To make these part aims possible, we are going to elaborate further our website www.acc.eu.org

Co-operational partners

The course is carried through on ACC initiative. The ACC is a European organization. The secretariat of the ACC is situated at the IT-Folkehøjskolen Snoghøj, Denmark. The ACC International office is cooperating closely with the ITFS and the Vejle Amt (Vejle County). The Transylvania community course is planned and carried out by the ACC Transylvania committee. The main recruitment of participants in the courses will be carried out in a close co-operation with the local branches of the ACC. We have representatives in more than 20 European countries. We are co-operating in Transylvania with the Reformat church school in Szekelyudvarhely/Odorheiu and with the Union of Hungarian Youth Organizations.

Budapest and Snoghøj, March 17th, 2000

The ACC Transylvania committee:
Laszlo Dani (deputy chairperson of the ACC),
Agota Illyes (coordinator),
Barna Kovacs (coordinator)

John Petersen, chairperson of the ACC