by Katrina Kalnina
On 1 and 2 June 2018, the third edition of the European Youth Event took place in Strasbourg, France. The event, which was organised under the motto “The plan is to fan this spark into a flame”, gathered around 9000 people at the European Parliament. With participants coming from all over Europe and beyond, a total of 109 nationalities were present at the event, making it a truly rich and intercultural environment.
EFIL had the opportunity to attend the event, taking part in activities and organising workshops in the “Safe and Dangerous: staying alive in turbulent times” hub of the YO!Fest organised by the European Youth Forum. 
The EFIL group consisted of 23 participants from 11 AFS organisations, who not only ran the workshops they had been working on for eight months, but also had the chance to attend other activities by various partners of the European Youth Forum. EFIL together with EEE-YFU also organised an event inside the European Parliament to discuss funding for pupil mobility in the new Erasmus programme, and MEP Brando Benifei addressed the audience.
These were two very intense yet rewarding days. We are happy and thankful to have been part of such an event, and EFIL is looking forward to coming back in 2020!
For more information about the event, go to: www.europarl.europa.eu/european-youth-event/!
The prep team: Eliza Popper (Hungary), Aleksandar Todorovic (Serbia), Katrina Kalnina (Latvia)