Youth & Politics | Hikma | HSIR

YOUTH AND POLITICS

CONFERENCES

“How War Changed my Life”

“(A)Political Young Generations

This pillar aims at understanding what kind of agency the young generations are currently using to shape the world of politics, either from within or as outsiders, and, at the same time, how politics involves the youth.

Discussions will address the weak relationship between youth and politics: the lack of young representation in political institutions, young people's alienation from public life, and the underinvestment in "youth policies".

Moreover, current events such as the Russia-Ukraine war and its impact on the younger generation will be discussed.

WORKSHOP

Youth Inside the European Parliament

Conferences

How war changed my life

In this conference, HIKMA will address the topic of conflicts and focus on analysing their impact on the younger population. The first part of the conference will focus on two points. Firstly, what is the reaction to the outbreak of war, i.e. which paths are taken by those involved such as armed resistance, staying in the country or not. Secondly, there will be the question of what is the role of social media within a context of war. The reference context is the ongoing Russia - Ukraine conflict. In the second part, the focus is on what the economic impact of the conflict is. More specifically, how it changes the working lives of young people and what impact it has on the labour market as well as analysing whether there is an increase in economic inequality.

Giorgio Cella

Giorgio Cella is a historian and international geopolitics analyst, author of 'History and Geopolitics of the Ukrainian Crisis. From Kievan Rus' to Today'. He teaches Geopolitics of the post-Soviet space at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and was international election observer in Ukraine and Georgia for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Cristiano Tinazzi

Cristiano Tinazzi has been a professional freelance journalist specialising in crisis and war zones since 2004, after graduating in History from University of Milan.

Since 2006, he has covered the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, then travelled to Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and Lebanon. From 2011, he covered the Arab Spring in Tunisia and then Libya. In 2012, he shot the documentary 'Syria 2.0 - The battle for Aleppo' for RAI (finalist at the Al-Jazeera film festival in Doha 2012, Qatar). He has also been in the Donbas (Ukraine), South Sudan, Senegal, Russia and many other countries.

He is the founder of the War reporting training camp for aspiring journalists in war zones. Finally, he is director of the documentary film 'Crossfire', an investigation into the death of Russian journalist Andrej Mironov and Italian photographer Andrea Rocchelli in the Donbass in May 2014

Jamie Shea

Jamie Shea has worked with NATO since 1980 and is Deputy Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges. His positions include among others Director of Policy Planning in the Private Office of the Secretary-General, Deputy Assistant Secretary-General for External Relations, Deputy Chief and Officer in charge of Policy Planning and Multilateral Affairs in the Political Directorate.

Outside NATO, Jamie Shea is involved in several leading academic institutions. He is Professor at the Collège d'Europe, Bruges, Visiting Lecturer in the Practice of Diplomacy, University of Sussex, Associate Professor of International Relations at American University, Washington DC. He also lectures at the Brussels School of International Studies at the University of Kent and at the Security and Strategy institute at the University of Exeter, where he is an Honorary Fellow. He is also Senior Transatlantic Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and Senior Fellow of the London School of Economics.

Among his many associations and participations, he is a member of the Advisory Board of Chatham House Security and Defence Programmes, a member of the Policy Council of the World Economic Forum in Geneva and a founder and board member of the Brussels Security and Defence Agenda and Friends of Europe. He is on the Council of the Danish Defence College in Copenhagen and the Académie Diplomatique Internationale in Paris.

Valeria Shashenok

Valeria Shashenok is a Ukrainian freelance photographer. When the war broke out in Ukraine in 2022, she decided to recount her experience through social media, in particular TikTok, where she showed followers her everyday life in Chernihiv with sincerity and humour. In 2022, she published with Sperling&Kupfer '24 February. And the sky was no longer blue', her personal diary, enriched with photographs.

Augusto Lopez Claros

Augusto Lopez Claros is Executive Director and President of the Global Governance Forum. He is an international economist with over 30 years of experience in international organisations, including most recently at the World Bank. Between 2011 and 2017, he was Director of the World Bank's Global Indicators Group, the department responsible for the Bank's Doing Business report and other international benchmarking studies. He was previously Chief Economist and Director of the Global Competitiveness Programme at the World Economic Forum in Geneva, where he was also editor of the Global Competitiveness Report. Before joining the Forum, he worked for several years in the financial sector in London, focusing on emerging markets. In the 1990s, he was resident representative of the International Monetary Fund in the Russian Federation.

(A)Political Young Generations

The main objective of this conference is to explore the delicate relationship between the youth and politics. We aim to investigate potential ways of improving the performance of institutions when dealing with "youth policies," and to ponder on the fundamental role that young people have in politics and in discussions about the future of our society.

The most pressing challenges that we must confront when reflecting on the "youth and politics" relationship are the prevailing distrust in democracy, the estrangement of younger generations from public life, and the lack of substantial changes in our society. The average age of members in the European Parliament is 49.5 years, and the situation in national parliaments is even worse. There are no critical institutions that directly involve young people in the political system, and consequently, the rate of abstention among the new generations is rising. We firmly believe that this fundamental connection must change, and that young people must have a crucial role in shaping the future of the political system.

Silvia Panini

Modenese by origin but European by academic and work experience, she studied across Germany, Italy and France and she is now completing her studies in international relations and European affairs in Berlin, with a thesis on internal democracy in political parties. She is currently doing an internship at the Italian Association of Italian Foundations and Philanthropic Institutions (Assifero), an experience that is leading her to get to know not only the world of the Third Sector in Italy but also to study the techniques of fundraising and financial sustainability of non-profit organisations in our country, in Europe and worldwide. Since November 2021, she has been part of the National Board of Directors of Volt Italia.

Adriano Bertone

Adriano Bertone is the founder of GenerazioneT, a project started in Umbria by a group of young people from the Trasimeno area, and 20e30, an Italian association. The central theme addressed is about youth policies, and in a broader sense, the relationship between the civil-youth world and local administrations. The aim is to give young people a voice through the creation of a network enabling them to develop proposals on youth policies. Adriano has also been selected by the Department of Youth Policy as European Youth Ambassador for the Umbria region.

Adriano Coppa

President of the European Youth Parliament Italy (EYP Italy). Student of the Master's degree course in International Relations at La Sapienza University of Rome, he has a great passion for European and international affairs. His studies and interests have enabled him to acquire language skills in English and French and experience in public speaking and communication.

Agnese Casadei

Agnese Casadei, 23 anni, è attivista di Fridays for future dal 2019 e portavoce del movimento a livello nazionale. Dopo aver conseguito la laurea in Lingue e culture europee con una tesi sulla comunicazione dell'emergenza climatica, si sta specializzando in Letterature moderne, comparate e postcoloniali presso l'Università di Bologna.

Workshop

Model European Parliament

The workshop will simulate a session of the European Parliament, involving its participants in an event that can offer them the opportunity to put into practice the knowledge acquired during their studies and understand the fundamental role played by the European Parliament in European and international politics. Therefore, the final objective of the workshop for its participants will be to engage in a practical exercise, raise awareness of the work of the European Parliament and arouse their curiosity and passion in pursuing careers in the European Union.

Punto Europa

Punto Europa was established in May 1999, at Forlì, following an agreement signed by the University of Bologna, the Municipality of Forlì and the Province of Forlì-Cesena.

It is an information centre, whose main task is to provide information about the EU functioning - hence contributing to make it more visible, transparent and ultimately democratic - and to make European citizens aware of the EU's impact on their everyday life.

Punto Europa is part of the European information network of the European Community.

Brando Benifei

Brando Benifei, European Federalist, is one of the youngest MEPs, recently re-elected, and is from La Spezia, Italy, and he is the Head of Delegation of the Italian S&D MEPs. His main fields of legislative work in the EP have been Employment and Social Affairs, Security and Defence and Foreign Affairs. He has been co-chair of the Youth Intergroup and vice-chair of the Disability Intergroup. Among his work in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, he is Shadow Rapporteur for the European Social Fund Plus and was responsible for the European Solidarity Corps and for key reports on the social inclusion and integration of refugees into the EU labour market, as well as youth employment policy such as the Youth Guarantee and the Youth Employment Initiative. He is also active on digitalisation and rights of people with disabilities. In Foreign Affairs, he was Rapporteur on Post-Arab Spring in the MENA region.

In 2018, he received the MEP Award for his work on Employment and Social Affairs issues, for his work on youth unemployment. In 2016, Forbes included him in its annual 30 under-30 most influential in EU Politics list.

Massimiliano Smeriglio

Massimiliano Smeriglio is an associate university professor at the Faculty of Education at the University of Rome La Sapienza. In the course of his professional and institutional academic career, he has deepened the relationship between welfare, learning processes and democratic participation. With a particular focus on the relationship between the European dimension and that of cities. On 1 February 2022 he was elected coordinator of the Committee on Culture and Education of the European Parliament. He is currently ambassador of the italian association "Telefono Rosa", President of the Delegation to the EU-Mexico Joint Parliamentary Committee (D-MX), member of the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly (Eurolat), and also member of the scientific committee of the Armando Editore publishing house.