Müzeyen Tasdelen, Mindchangers project coordinator at SEZ, and Navika Deol, Mindchangers ambassador as guests on the DRUCK SACHE podcast.
In episode #40 “Young Voices for the 2030 Agenda” of the DRUCK SACHE podcast, Müzeyen Tasdelen, Mindchangers project coordinator at SEZ, and Navika Deol, Mindchangers ambassador with host State Secretary Rudi Hoogvliet, discussed their commitment to Mindchangers.
The focus of the episode is on the barriers and challenges that young people have to contend with when engaging in initiatives, participation and projects to achieve the goals of the 20230 Agenda. The very current question of the extent to which European decision-makers enable the long-term inclusion of young migrants is also examined in the episode. In addition, Müzeyen Tasdelen and Navika Deol provide insights into the structures of Mindchangers, their areas of responsibility and personal experiences in relation to their volunteer work.
“With the 2030 Agenda, the global community has set itself 17 goals for socially, economically and ecologically sustainable development. These include, for example, the goals for high-quality education or affordable and clean energy, but also the goal of creating “partnerships to achieve these goals”. One form of such partnerships is the promotion of mind changers,” says Rudi Hoogvliet in the 40th episode of DRUCK SACHE.
Breaking down barriers to young engagement
“Central to this is the collaboration with partner organizations all over the world and also this understanding [...] that everything is one big gear that meshes with one another and that these problems should not be viewed individually,” emphasized Müzeyen Tasdelen. The Mindchangers projects are therefore active in Baden-Württemberg and the five partner regions of Piedmont, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, La Rioja, Federation Wallonie-Bruxelles and Dolj County. In this way, Mindchangers supports young people across Europe to become more effectively politically active as a community. Therefore, one of the overarching goals of the Mindchangers campaign is to address barriers such as ignorance, indifference and a lack of trust among political decision-makers towards young committed people and at the same time to break them down.
In addition to climate change, Navika Deol and Müzeyen Tasdelen see inadequate integration and inclusion of young migrants in European society as a major problem. The competence of these actors must be recognized and integrated into solutions to current challenges: “I want my competence to be denied just because I have a migration background or that you quickly become a figurehead for great integration […] I want it neither. […] I am not just my migration story, I am more than that and the commitment I do is not because I have a migration background, but because the topic interests me personally!” emphasizes Navika Deol.
Through information campaigns and events, Mindchangers identifies precisely these social injustices. The campaign supports change through educational work and exchange.
In the second part of the podcast, State Secretary Rudi Hoogvliet addresses, among other things, two topics discussed in the Federal Council. On the one hand, by establishing a new heat planning to decarbonize the heating networks. Secondly, with the changes to the Energy Industry Act and the Soil Monitoring Act. In addition, the draft circular economy in the automotive sector, the European Union's accession negotiations with Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and Bosnia and Herzegovina and the plan to amend the aviation security fee regulation will be discussed.
