EuroPeers Annual Network Meeting 2024 in Germany

This year’s Annual Network Meeting brought together 50 young people and their National Agency representatives in the heart of nature in Germany to reconnect, share, and take action

This year’s Annual Network Meeting (ANM) was a wonderful opportunity for the international EuroPeers network to reconnect, share good practices and plan new activities together. For the first time since 2015, the ANM took place in Germany where the network was originally founded in 2005. Around 50 young people from Austria, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden and Spain came together for four days. As our network is part of the Strategic National Agency Cooperation (SNAC), the EuroPeers coordinators from 15 National Agencies across Europe also gathered in a parallel meeting to work on their EuroPeers strategy. Both meetings took place in Panarbora, a nature discovery park and youth hostel right in the heart of the Western German forests. Together we laughed, danced, sang, shared our stories and we learned from and with each other.

Day 1: After everyone successfully made their way from all corners of Europe to Panarbora in the midst of nature, we started getting to know each other and reconnected with old friends from different countries. Some participants already explored the surroundings upon arrival, discovering the treetop walk and the view from the tower. The official kick-off started in the afternoon with a welcome by the German National Agency, the international network coordinator Marie Heimburg and the four trainers. In the evening, we explored different playful stations to learn more about each other, our expectations for the ANM and values we connect with the network.

Day 2: Our second day started with a walk and talk in the forest in pairs, discussing what the EuroPeers network has brought into our lives. We spent some time in our national networks to prepare posters with updates about our current state of play – and we were excited to learn more about new members like the Swedish network. Since National Agencies representatives had their meeting in the room next door, we used the opportunity to connect with them and develop ideas together for key topics and working groups. In this brainstorming session, topics like social media frameworks, cross-border collaborations and impact assessment came up. And to refresh our minds after a long day of discussing and co-creating, we transformed the seminar room into a party space with a special guest: DJ Inge from the German National Agency.

Day 3: What makes a EuroPeer a EuroPeer? In small groups we created posters about what knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors our network represents, followed by creating competence cards about which unique ingredients each of us is contributing to the perfect colorful recipe – each with their own abilities, backgrounds and stories. In the afternoon, we discussed different topics in an open space: learning about an inclusive communication guide by the Romanian network, exploring the ESC as a self-discovering journey, sharing international dances, a forest walk, and creating a workshop for the European Youth Event 2025. In the evening, the German EuroPeers prepared a game night with different challenges. To keep the tradition of the national German Annual Network Meetings alive, the last evening ended around the bonfire with stick bread and singing songs from our different cultures and countries.

Day 4: The final day was used for action planning in small groups for local and international activities, and discussing our next steps as a network. All participants put their take-aways from the four days in a suitcase: the EuroPeers spirit, motivation, new ideas and new friends. In the end, each person took a handprint back home with values we connect with the EuroPeers network – community, connection and inclusion, just to name a few! „With the EuroPeers group, I always learn new things and the energy is so inspiring!“, junior trainer Bente from the Netherlands expressed. Miguel from Spain added: „It’s always very useful to come to the ANM to share with people who have the same ideas and values, and in the end we all have common goals – we come out of here with a lot of things we will do in the next months.“

Thank you to Ronja Höfers and Alexandra Tschiersky from the German National Agency for hosting this year’s ANM. It was a wonderful opportunity to develop our international community further and to make new meaningful connections for the future of our network. As Mahdad from Sweden concluded: „We got to meet a lot of new amazing people, share ideas and be creative together, and be ready for another year of EuroPeers!“

Further impressions of the network meeting, summarized by the support team Almut Röder and Alexandra Person, can be found on Instagram at @europeers.eu.