WYA family mourns WYA Africa RDO Vanessa Cherese Oyugi
The World Youth Alliance (WYA) family pays special tribute to our late WYA Africa Director of Operations Vanessa Cherese Oyugi who passed away on October 17, 2016. She was taken ill for a few weeks and bravely fought through it, having lived with Lupus. Vanessa was laid to rest on October 29, 2016 in Uriri, […]
Investing in the Family, Investing in the Future
I and my fellow WYA members attended a European Youth Workshop and Conference titled “Family, investing in the future” and organized by the Confederation of Family Associations in the Carpathian Basin. The program, which was hosted by Hungarian MEP György Hölvényi from the EPP, took place at the European Parliament. The speakers addressed the challenges faced […]
Nadia Murad awarded the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize
This week the Council of Europe has awarded the Vaclav Havel Human Rights price to Nadia Murad; a Yazidi human rights activist who survived ISIS genocide in Iraq. Nadia denounced the lack of attention and action against Islamic terrorism. After loosing many members of her family and friends, Nadia has taken the responsibility of making […]
What is Cultural Identity?
Does Culture Shape our Identity? Cultural identity was one topic of many during the four days of the International Solidarity Forum (ISF). The forum was packed with lectures and presentations from experts and distinguished speakers. Professor Carlo Lancelloti spoke about the “new form of totalitarianism” that has taken over our contemporary times. Dr. Ethan Haim, […]
Building greater WYA solidarity: Hrvoje Vargic shares his plans, vision for WYA Europe
“As WYA staff, we have an important role to accompany our members in their WYA journey – to celebrate their joys and successes and to support them in times of obstacles and sorrows. We want to help them grow and to learn from them,” Hrvoje Vargic, WYA Europe’s newest Regional Director, shares as he started […]
Conflicts of interest: does the surrogacy industry care about what’s best for children?
A consensus is building among countries and political parties that banning surrogacy is necessary to protect children’s and women’s rights, but there is still an unresolved question: how can we protect the best interests of children born through surrogacy? In other words, is it possible to ban surrogacy and still respect the rights of those […]
Hope for the Future
I recently came across a screen capture of a teacher expressing concern about her fifth grade students’ essays on how they see themselves 10 -15 years into the future. She lamented that based on their answers, these kids seem to idolize leaders who prefer to use force over passive methods, and are growing up to […]
The gift of motherhood to the human family
Robert Browning described motherhood as “the beginning and end of all love”. Last September 28 2016, WYA Europe members participated at the Conference on the European Day of safe birth and motherhood. The event, held at the European Parliament, was organized by the Association Europe for Family and hosted by MEP Arne Gericke from the German Family […]
Human rights and the baby market
Les droits de l’homme à l’épreuve de la marchandisation de l’enfant [tabs] [tab title=”English”] Human rights and the baby market Brussels recently hosted the European fair for having children through gestational surrogacy organized by the surrogacy group Men Having Babies. At the same time, the Council of Europe has just rejected a very controversial resolution […]
Celebrating 2016 European Day of Safe Birth and Motherhood
World Youth Alliance Europe contributed to the celebration of the European Day of Safe Birth and Motherhood with the presence of Antoine Mellado, WYA Europe’s director of advocacy as one of the panelists at the Conference on Safe Birth and Maternal Health. The death of a mother not only affects her family and put their children at […]