:: Representative for Western Europe 2009-2011

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you do”

Hello! My name is Laura and together with my colleague Simona I will represent the region of Western Europe in the next three years.

I have been working with the Committee for Youth Action, the Youth Group of ECPAT Austria, since October 2007. I got in touch with this NGO through a university course I did in Human Rights. Since then, I have participated in several activities we carried out with the Committee for Youth Action – I found a lot of friends there and love the work we do. Besides, I also like being active and participate in activities and events concerning other important Human Rights-issues.

I am really looking forward to an exciting, interesting, fruitful time fighting child abuse and exploitation with all my EICYAC-friends around the world. Thank you very much – I will enjoy planning and working with you … and of course learning from you ;-)!

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Hello, I´m Simona from Germany, one of the new EICYAC Representatives for Western Europe. I am work for a non-governmental organization called Aktion Weißes Friedensband, which is affiliated to ECPAT Germany. Furthermore I am the Youth Representative for ECPAT Germany and also a member of the Executive Board.

I have been involved in child right issues, since secondary school. After reading a lot about the violation against child soldiers, I decided to establish a study group and to raise awareness for child rights and their disregarding. Shortly after graduating from school I did an internship at Aktion Weißes Friedensband. During this I started to work with youth groups and to develop projects and activities for and with children and teenagers. I did educational work at school in form of workshops dealing with child sexual exploitation and child soldiers as well as media, project, and administrative work. On the occasion of the international day against child prostitution I had a close contact with ECPAT Germany. With the participation of young people, Aktion Weißes Friedensband and ECPAT initiated a big demonstration at Düsseldorf International Airport.
I am very proud of being a part of such a motivated group of young people and I am very confident about our teamwork and the achievements we will have within the next three years.

:: Representative for Western Europe 2005-2008

“My will shall shape my future. Whether I fail or succeed shallbe nobody`s obing but my own. I am the force; I can clear any obstacle before me or I can be lost in the maze. My choice; my responsibility; win or lose, only I hold the key to my destiny.” Elaine Maxwell

I am Marion, the newest member of EICYAC. I am studying international development at the University of Vienna and specialise in children’s rights as this is my passion

Even though it might not look like it, there is a lot of work to do in my region. Western Europe is quite challenging, because a lot of people don`t recognise the existing problems, but say that everything is as it should be. But there are a lot of people coming from Western Europe who are involved in CSEC (Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children) in other countries (like in Child Sex Tourism), but also forms of CSEC like child prostitution, child pornography, etc. are practiced within Western Europe. One of the biggest challenges being child trafficking, where the Western European region are receiving countries and therefore one contributing factor to the phenomenon!

CYP (Child and Youth Participation) within ECPAT in my home country and in most other countries in the region is just in its beginnings, so part of my job within EICYAC is to help all the countries with their work in the field of CYP and strenghten the network of active youth groups within my region. We all need to stay in touch!!

I am also currently starting an Austrian Youth committee to show everybody that it is possible also within Western Europe! For this I am coordinating a group of young dedicated students on a whole lot of activities, such as updating our national website, conducting workshops on child pornography in schools, helping ECPAT Austria with their work (i.e. in projects, etc.) and many more. I am actually really excited about this!

Within EICYAC I am helping to finalise our new website. Also keeping in touch with everybody and beeing up to date on all the activities (and there are a lot ;) ) is really important. Working together on different topics, as I have just recently done with Milica Petrovic (the EICYAC East European Youth Representative) by conducting a joint workshop at the RNRE (Regional Network Ressource Exchange) in Barcelona is great and further strenghtening the EICYAC network.

I really like being part of EICYAC, because it helps to have a backbone as I call it on the international level. Just knowing that there are some young committed people out there just like me, working on the same things, having similar struggles makes me feel not so alone behing my computer J I enjoy working together with them. I have the feeling that there is a lot to be done, but together we can contribute immensly to the fight against CSEC- more people are always welcomed of course