ADYNE - African Diaspora Youth Network in Europe

The African Diaspora Youth Network in Europe – ADYNE is a platform of organisations, led and driven by young Africans and young people with African backgrounds living in Europe1. It aims and endeavours to serve the interests of young people from all over Europe, promoting their active participation in a constructive dialogue between African and European societies. For the past years, a growing number of young African leaders from the Diaspora have felt the need to create a network to connect with each other and express their needs, interests and aspirations. They strongly believe that, as Africans from the Diaspora, they can be key actors and be the bridge between African and European societies. Therefore, they joined their efforts to make this vision a reality and launched a process that resulted in the establishment of the African Diaspora Youth Network in Europe - ADYNE. Since its birth ADYNE has been growing looking directly to direct results and outcome of its actions, and step after step contributing to engage more and more european and african youth towards creating a sense of citizenship, responsibility, building on strength in order to overcome together the weaknesses. ADYNE is a continuous process that aims to become the face of the African Diaspora young people in Europe, actively participating and contributing, for the sustainable development of our societies. We vision a world where African Diaspora youth in Europe can be unite as global citizens and contribute to the sustainable development of both continents. The network wishes to connects organisations and individuals, to collaborate and actively participate as global citizens, to shape the lives of African Diaspora young people in Europe, while helping them speaking up their voices and create a connection in order to provide more opportunities to be heard, to be integrated and find their position as an important part of the European society and to play their role in helping and giving back to their home countries. ADYNE's values lay where the single effort of one person joins the one of other people creating strong and common foundations : it wants to be youth led and youth driven, to be responsible and inspirational citizens and leaders that exhibit courage and a positive image of Africa and the African Diaspora Youth in Europe; through ADYNE, we aspire to positive change and excellence in everything that we do, working with mutual understanding and respect, in a learning and involved environment; we promote African cultures and heritage while preserving them, and the knowledge that comes from them, to enrich the diversities that strengthen the African Diaspora identity; we all wish to live and share the spirit of "Ubuntu2" that recognises coexistence, humanity, belonging and accountability, and which aims to serve and respect others. From this beliefs, ADYNE has moved towards creating concrete objectives such as: provide a space for organisations and individuals to exchange and share similar interests, goals and aspirations; offer strategic support for capacity building, networking and the dissemination of good practices; voice the concerns of its member organisations in the political agenda of governmental, as well as European, African and international institutions; produce policies and positions, which are based on the research, experience and expertise of young Africans living in Europe. During the year, ADYNE has developed two main spaces to implement its values and to work towards its objectives: the University on Youth and Development, in Mollina, Spain and the African University on Youth and Development, in Cape Verde. Among the capacity building activities that ADYNE has been implementing, there has always been a special attention regarding leadership creation and sustainable development. Since 2006, during its first meeting in Almada (Portugal), for the first time, the Africa Diaspora youth concerns into the political agenda of Africa-Europe Youth Cooperation. ADYNE has developed partnership with the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe, the European Youth Forum and the Directorate of Youth and Sport of the Council of Europe, along with national youth councils like the Italia “Forum Nazionale Giovani” and the French "Institut National de la Jeunesse et de l'Education Populaire". For the next two years, , ADYNE has identified the need to focus on the enlargement and development of the international network and to support the development of formal and informal networks that gather together African Diaspora youth organisations at the national level. In this sense, a strategy was designed to work together with National Youth Councils and other international organizations in order to support ADYNE’s mapping of the local youth organisations, led by young Africans from the Diaspora in different European countries. ADYNE aims at supporting them to become a voice on their national structures, to be able to influence the policies that are affecting the lives of young people from the African Diaspora. ADYNE aims to invite grass-roots organisations to get involved in this process and bring visibility to the activities that these organisations have been developing. ADYNE's policy focus for is "employment, decent work, and entrepreneurship". ADYNE aims to gather data and address those very important issues that concern all young Africans and young people with African background across Europe. We hope to influence the decision makers in developing youth policies in favour of a better social and economical inclusion of young Africans and young people with African backgrounds living in Europe. ADYNE shall reaffirm the core value of volunteering for the personal and social development of young African Diaspora living in Europe. We shall reinforce volunteering as a tool to help us join forces to meet the Millennium Development Goals beyond 2015. Furthermore, we shall promote active citizenship, democracy and human rights principles, as well as integrate the values of the African Diaspora youth at the centre of global development.