Having the order of the European Commission in the luggage to come in touch with new contact movements within Europe, Johanna Schiller (Jojo), German Commissioner and Jürgen Westermann, member of the European Team went on a trip through central Europe.
Starting at the meeting point in Munich, Jojo and Jürgen travelled to Vienna to meet KJÖ, the Catholic Youth Austria. Together with Wolfgang Schönleitner, secretary of KJÖ and Ingrid Zúñiga Zúñiga, member of the national board, an old connection could be reactivated. The KJÖ faced a restructuring process since about one decade and before the catholic rural movement was a member organisation of MIJARC Europe. With the restructuring, the rural movement was united with other catholic youth organisations and the contact to MIJARC drifted off.
With this background MIJARC Europe is very happy to have a new contact to Austria and also that KJÖ will send delegates to Etropole, Bulgaria. If you want to have more information about KJÖ, please visit the homepage (german language).
Although the residence time in Vienna for Jojo and Jürgen was only from six a.m. to six p.m., they visited the site of the UN organisations located in Vienna and they could enjoy the famous original Sacher cake.
The next step on Jojo's and Jürgen's trip was to move on to Budapest and since the meeting with Katolikus Ifjúsági Mozgalom was set two days later, they could use the time for some touristic activities and get to know Hungarian culture and cuisine. On the program was a visit in the Hungarian Parliament, the National Agricultural Museum and the St. Stephen's Basilica in Budapest. As culinary delicacy the two experienced the taste of typical Goulash, original Strudel and Hungarian Beer. As if the newly won experience would'nt have been enough, also Saint Peter laid an eye on the trip so the wheather was to melt away - almost no clouds and between 30°-35° C.
The main topic on the Budapest agenda was then the meeting with Miklos Gábor and György Hetyey from the Hungarian Catholic Youth Movement called KIM (Katolikus Ifjúsági Mozgalom). KIM also had previous connections to MIJARC but also here the contact drifted off. But as in the case of KJÖ, also delegates from KIM are expected to the seminar in Bulgaria in August. Here you can see the homepage of KIM (hungarian language).
As a summary we can say that the journey was very fruitful and we hope that the cooperation with KJÖ and KIM will go on in the future.
Here you can see some pictures of the trip.
