Treaty of Middelburg
To answer this question I would need a whole book, so I will focus on my community as recommended. as an international student living in the Netherlands I would definitely put a more stringent regulation regarding housing and short-term rentals. At the moment, international students are constantly being denied their rights or exploited economically by landlords who just want to make the most of their apartments. Moreover, make Dutch courses more accessible to students, so that they are encouraged to learn the language and culture of the country in which they are living. Objectively, courses organized at national level are too intensive and concentrated in a too short period of time. It is impossible for a working student to follow them. To conclude, as a transgender man, I would like to be able to travel around the world without worrying about my safety. I would like not to be discriminated against in the workplace or at university. I would like access to the same opportunities as people of the same gender. I would like the number of trans people killed each year to decrease, instead of increasing. I wish I could be considered simply a human being like everyone else.
Team members
- ■ Mars Vaccari
Why do you want to participate?
I consider this experience as an important opportunity for personal growth, but above all as an opportunity to learn a new way of working and to analyse a certain and fundamental topic, such as that of freedom. I think this is a unique event, not only because of its internationality, but also because it will have a concrete purpose, namely to present our proposal to the Secretary General of the United Nations and the Chairman of the NATO summit. Also, considering the voluntary basis of this project, I expect to meet new people who share my interests. This will be a way for me to create constructive dialogues and challenge myself and my ideas.
What does freedom mean to you?
Freedom is a very big and complex term. Freedom starts from the most fundamental human rights: right of expression and speech, right of decision over someone's life or someone’s body and many more. As a person raised in Western Europe by a middle class family I have experienced most of these rights as obvious and granted. However, growing up and learning about life outside my little town, I realized that there are still many steps to be taken. For this reason, one of the main purposes of my studies is to be part of a change that will make freedom a universal right. The complicated part of this is to recognize that sometimes the freedom that we, citizens living in the Western side of the world, so strongly defend comes from the lack of freedom of other people in other parts of the world. Just think of the origin of the goods we consume, from fast fashion and smartphones, to out-of-season fruit. To sum up, I think we can talk about freedom at a time when our rights are no longer privileges, but something that must be guaranteed to every human being.
What are the biggest challenges?
If I consider people of my age and who have a similar background to mine, there are still several challenges they face. If I think about the challenges for my parents' generation or my grandparents' generation, I realize that the issues are much different. Not for that, however, they are less important. I think one of the most current freedom challenges for my generation is the difficulty in finding their own identity. In fact, in everyday life, thanks to very advanced technology and developed transportation, we are constantly subject to a huge amount of information and people. Each of us processes this differently. Moreover, the younger generations are much more aware of the reality around them. The words war, crisis, European Union...have become part of the vocabulary of the youngest. This leads to asking important questions from a young age and to becoming adults too fast. We are told that we can do anything, but as we grow up we realize that it is not so and this scares us. My mother always tells me "I never had so many options, as you did" and this is true. But that doesn’t make the situation any less frightening, on the contrary. In this fast and organized society, everyone expects a lot from you, without realizing that sometimes we need some time to find ourselves among the thousands of features that are shown to us every day. Another challenge is surely to be able to fight the sense of impotence that we are subjected to every day, reading the news and what is happening in countries far from ours. Moreover, we must not only fight our own impotence, but also the sense of indifference and “habit” that has now become an integral part of our being. We are now so accustomed to violence and injustice that we have become able to give ourselves no too much weight, or consider them almost as part of our daily life.
Do you have a message?
I have not much to suggest. I am just very curious about the way in which the concept of freedom will be approached and what freedoms will be mentioned as fundamental and what topics will be given more importance. Thank you for considering me to participate in this project.
