Has knowing other languages opened doors for you, made a difference in your life? How? The European Commission would love to hear your story on the advantage of knowing languages! So join the Tongue Stories competition. Send your contribution and inspire people to use different languages by telling a interesting and amusing anecdote. The contributions from competitors in the 31 participating countries will be published on the campaign website for public voting and the best stories will be rewarded with a free trip to Brussels. The competition and the public voting are open until 31 January 2011. Check out the terms and conditions of the competition for more info.

Interested in knowing more about languages in Europe? News, information on language policy, initiatives and much more are available on the Multilingualism website of the European Commission. Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth shares her own language story with you. Just as some celebrities as Bjorn Borg did.

Young Europeans between 18 and 35 years old are invited to participate in the POLYGLOT video contest. The challenge is to produce a video about multilingualism and how it affects the young Euro-generation. The video (maximum 5 minutes long) could be submitted in two categories:
- Video Portraits (Documentaries on My multilingualism);
- Video Poems (Fictions on The language I dream in).

18 winners will be selected to attend a 2-week “Cine-Boat” film making workshop in June 2011 in Turku and the Åland Islands (Finland). The filmmakers will also present their work during a POLYGLOT film festival, as the city of Turku celebrates its status as European Capital of Culture. Submission deadline: 15 December 2010. More detailed information about the contest.

“Shoot Against Poverty” is looking for young amateur photographers between 15 and 25 years old to join us in the fight against poverty! Send in your best photograph visualizing the fight against poverty in the south. Motivate your picture and tell us something about your own commitment to this worthy cause. Maybe your picture will be selected for the outdoor exposition in the centre of Brussels during the European Development Days in 2010. In addition you will have a chance to win the first prize: a trip to Burkina Faso for a workshop photography during the film festival Yèelba FESPACO 2011! Get your camera and sign up for the competition. Submission deadline: 15 November 2010. Find out more.

New submission deadline of the video competition in celebration of the 10^th anniversary of the International Year of Volunteering: 20 November 2010. Further information about the participation criteria, prizes and selection procedure is available on this website.

On 12 August 2010, the United Nations launched the International Year of Youth, under the theme Dialogue and Mutual Understanding, to generate much needed attention for youth participation and youth development at local, national and global levels. The Year provides an important opportunity to increase commitment to youth, promote youth participation and enhance inter-cultural dialogue and understanding among youth.

How to post your ideas, videos or pictures:

• “Share your suggestions on how we can promote urban sustainable development?” on this Facebook page before 15 November 2010!
• Share a video about the International Year of Youth (IYY) on the IYY YouTube channel by sending an email of the video’s URL to youth@un.org with the subject “IYY video sharing”
• Share photos about the International Year of Youth (IYY) on the IYY Picassa Photo Gallery by sending an email to youth@un.org with the subject “IYY photo sharing”

IGLYO is proud to announce its poster contest “1st of December – World AIDS day” to fight against the discrimination suffered by HIV-positive young people. The submitted posters should be creative, original, artistic, positive in approach and should reflect the diversity of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,Transgender(LGBTQ)movement. The selected poster will be used by IGLYO in health campaigns to fight against the discrimination of HIV positive young people. In addition, the winning participant will receive a certificate, an official IGLYO cup, a printed copy of the poster and a voucher worth € 200,-. Submission deadline: 6 November 2010. Find out more about the contest rules.

The Fair-Trade Tour shall be a bicycle and media based lobby campaign for Fair Trade (FT). In Latin America there will be one team cycling around visiting existing cooperatives and giving workshops on FT to conventional farmers. On the other hand the demand of buying FT products in Europe shall be raised at the same time: through project participants that stay at home in their EU-country supporting the ‘mother tour’ in Latin America through press work (PR). The project itself plus preparation will take at least 8 months. In early 2011 there will be a first 3-day brainstorming/networking/preparing meeting in Germany according the Youth in Action program.

Are you interested? Today at 3 pm German time there will be a first Skype conference with interested people. Please, mail your Skype name to photo@sebastian-burger.de if you want to participate.

If you have an affinity towards Fair Trade and bicycles have a look at this one page pdf file with slightly more information AND/OR registrate at http://www.youthnetworks.eu where you will find more information on how to apply.

 Young Reporters Against Poverty (YRAP) is a competition for journalism and communication student between 18 and 30 years old, from all 27 EU Member states. Submit a written article or short radio broadcast in your native language on the subject: EU development assistance. The focus should be “aid” to support the economic, social and political development of developing countries. The 33 finalist students will be able to create their own personal page on www.youngreporters.net where their winning article/broadcast will be displayed. They will also be invited in Brussels to report from the European Development Days on 4-7 December 2010. Three overall winners will finally be selected for the press trip of a lifetime to Africa. Submission deadline: 29 October 2010. Find out more.

Watch the documentary “Youth Work – Take it a step further” and learn more about the history and omportance of Youth work in Europe. The documentary was taken during the 1st European Youth Work Convention held in Ghent (Belgium) on 7-10 July 2010 under the EU Belgian Presidency.

European citizens are invited to participate in the Europa Diary Cover competition. The challenge is to design a cover for the Europa diary, which should not contain any text and should be suitable for distribution to young people )aged 16-18′ in all EU countries. The Europa diary covers topics such as environment, consumer affairs, responsible consumption, and the European Union itself. The deadline for submitting entries is 13 November 2010. If you want to participate in this competition, please visit the Europa Diary competition web site for detailed information.