The World Conference in Malta unfortunately has come to an end…
"Regine van Asten"
Another guest entry by Regine van Asten, a Young AMASC member from The Netherlands and the project coordinator of Young AMASC.
The World Conference in Malta unfortunately has come to an end…
But not without having interesting lectures about ‘the Cost of Poverty’, ‘Education and Poverty’, the presentation on ‘Poverty in Hamburg’ by our Young AMASC members Robert, Marielle and Chantal, and a panel discussion in which Carolien Maas represented Young AMASC. Next to all the lectures and presentations we had a short meeting with Young AMASC worldwide. Last but definitely not least we had a wonderful gala dinner in Mdina including a lot of dancing!!!
Because I can imagine that you have other things to do than to read hours and hours about what we experienced here in Malta, I will give a short summary on topics important for Young AMASC (If you would like to read more you can have a look at the daily reports on the AMASC website)
First we have the presentation of the German Young AMASC Members; Robert Oehlmann, Chantal Meister and Marielle Findorff.
During the last few months they conveyed a research on the vision and experience of young people on Poverty in Hamburg. They questioned the pupils in the school, went to different organisations for information and read a lot of literature concerning this topic. Their findings were very interesting. Robert, Marielle and Chantal will tell you more about it through this blog when they arrive back in Germany.
After the presentation and a welcome break, Carolien represented us in the Panel Discussion. She was asked to give our point of view on the topic of the morning lecture on ‘Education on Poverty’. So Carolien told an impressive and lively story about her experience as a volunteer in our project in India (she went to the Sophia Centre in Patna to teach basic English to the little children there).
At the end of the afternoon there was time for all Young AMASC members to come together and talk about Young AMASC. There were young people from the USA, the Netherlands, Poland, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Malta, Belgium, India and so on… From all over the world. What was striking was that a lot of the young participants did not know Young AMASC existed. Through talking about why this was, we found out that the news that we’ve send out during the last four years wasn’t spread out within the national associations as we had hoped. We’ve come up with the idea to create a Young AMASC website (next to the existing AMASC Website) within the following months that will be linked to the AMASC website. In the meanwhile we will work towards having a massive (video)conference on the internet that you can follow from your own home. We’ll have to find out about all the details and how it really works so we give you information later on. In the meantime you can follow our activities and find information on the Facebook site, the AMASC website, and this blog (including more info about hospitality and the volunteer service).
After this meeting we had some free time to prepare for the big Gala Dinner in Mdina. The location was wonderful, everyone was dressed to impress and we had a great time. Dinner was lovely and the musical entertainment as well. But surprisingly it weren’t the young ones who enjoyed themselves on the dance floor… It was wonderful to see as you can imagine! :-d
Having met so many wonderful people, we can go back home with a lot of new friends from all over the world. It was a great experience to be here! We hope you loved reading our blogs. If you have any questions just contact us!
And for now to be a bit more concrete in answering the question that comes to mind:
What can and must you do!
And what you can do is go in the school, e-mail your friends and spread the word about what Young AMASC is, what we do and what this worldwide network can give you (volunteer service, hospitality).
As soon as possible we will post a power-point presentation that you can show in your schools to inform the students about Young AMASC. In the Netherlands we do this once a year, and it works like a charm! 
“Dinner with President Hermine van Asten, Miets from Sophianum (Netherlands), Hilary from England and a few young AMASC members.”
Hello everybody, my first entry… we thats Marielle, Robert, Heidi Brandi and me arrived back home yesterday evening .
In Hamburg its absolutly freezing sooo not to happy to be back.
The congress experience was wonderful and I am allready missing everything.:)
Nice summary Regine! Loved the congress aswell! Met so many kind & interesting people from all over the world and listened to many interesting presentations on various topics too:) the weather in holland is quite nice actually, so no complains here!