Officer Blog: OBESSU General Assembly 2016

Ellen O'Rourke, ISSU International Officer

(So, what’s OBESSU?)The Organising Bureau for European School Student Unions (OBESSU) is an organisation which connects and supports student voice on a European level. It was set up 40 years ago in Dublin and today has over 22 member organisations (MO’s). OBESSU works to advocate for student rights and bring student unions together from all over Europe.

The joy of electing new ‘Boardies’ was also tinged with a bit of sadness as we said goodbye to the old Boardies who have done so much for OBESSU over the past two years.Congratulations are in order for Bren dan from ISSU who will be continuing his work with OBESSU for one more year on the Monitoring Committee. Brendan, Nicholas and Maria will make up the new Monitoring Committee who will oversee and evaluate the work of the board this year. No pressure there so!On day 2 we were also introduced to a new project run in conjunction with Open Society Foundations.The name of the project is #RefugeesWelcome to school and it aims at the integration of migrant and refugee students in second level institutions across Europe. It all sounds very exciting and we hope to bring you more news on this soon!It was great to finally get our hands on a physical copy of OBESSU’s new manual for school students; this will no doubt be a valuable tool for us -and you lot- in the future. We brought home a few copies but there is also a pdf version online) and we can order more (if you’re interested hit us up- studentvoice@issu.ie)All in all, I was very impressed with OBESSU and the work they do to defend second-level students’ rights across Europe, I can’t wait to see what they get up to next