Alcohol Policy Youth Network

The Alcohol Policy Youth Network is a group of youth organisations and youth clubs that work towards the reduction of the harmful effects of youth drinking. Its mission is to mobilise young people across Europe to raise awareness about alcohol-related issues and to become advocates of better alcohol policy at local, national, regional and international level. APYN consists of three pillars, Capacity building, Research and Advocacy.

The motivation for establishing APYN was the European Union’s Council of Health Ministers’ meeting in Stockholm in 2001 that stated the need to “increase young peoples involvement in youth health-related policies and action”. The Council wished to protect young people and reduce their hazardous and harmful drinking. The opportunity to implement this policy was provided by the European Commission when it funded Eurocare’s Bridging the Gap Project. The European Youth Forum (YFJ) was invited to have a place on the group overseeing the project and João Salviano, an officer of their Youth Bureau, was appointed to represent them. The YFJ had, for a number of years, played an active role in social policy. Its involvement in the Bridging the Gap Project led to an awareness of alcohol-related harm as an important social and health issue for young people.

A working partnership developed between Derek Rutherford (then Secretary of Eurocare) and João Salviano, who both saw the need for even closer involvement of the Youth Forum and its National Youth Councils on the issue. In 2006 they succeeded in negotiating, with the support of

ACTIS Norway and IOGT-NTO Sweden, a 60,000 Euro grant from the Norwegian and Swedish Government enabling the YFJ to convene a working group to produce a position paper on alcohol.

Three meetings of the Working Group were held, in Athens, Berlin and Cambridge. To help the Working Group ascertain the views of their members regarding alcohol, a questionnaire was designed by Dr Ann Hope of Ireland and distributed to all affilliated National Youth Councils and youth organisations. The Working Group’s report was presented to the Annual General Meeting of the Youth Forum in Vilnius in November 2006. The 300 delegates, from almost all European countries, debated the report and referred it back to the Youth Bureau for further consideration. The Youth Bureau revised the position paper and presented it to an Extraordinary General Assembly in Baku in April 2007.

The paper recognised that alcohol abuse can destroy lives and families and lead to social exclusion and marginalisation. In Europe, 10% of female and 25% of male youth mortality was alcohol-related. Young people were often the victims of parental alcohol abuse.

One of the report’s recommendations was that public policies should be geared to supporting young people to make responsible choices and create a culture in which young peoples’ right to choose not to use alcohol or to use it responsibly is respected. Promotion and marketing reinforced a positive image of alcohol and often directly or indirectly targeted young people. Restrictions on alcohol marketing should be put in place and enforced in order for young people to make informed decisions. All young people should be protected from the harm that others can cause to them. Governments should ensure that those suffering damage to their personal lives and studies should receive help and support for themselves and their families.

The report recognised that youth organisations have an important role to play in influencing public policy to prevent and reduce alcohol-related harm among young people.

In the light of this report, João Salviano was contracted by the Alliance House Foundation to examine the feasibility of setting up an Alcohol Policy Youth Network.

An Advocacy Training course for young people was organised in Helsinki. Representatives of National Youth Councils, European organisations and the European section of the International Federation of Medical Students signed up for the three-day course. A small steering group was set up to oversee the development of a network.

The project was presented to Robert Madelin, Director- General of DG SANCO, who gave his encouragement and support. The Youth Bureau of the European Youth Forum also lent its support.

In March 2008, at the European Youth Centre in Budapest, the Alcohol Policy Youth Network was launched. Since its inception, APYN has been active in extending its membership and now has 27 member organisations from 21 European countries. APYN established itself as an international governmental organisation in 2011. It has been awarded a number of project grants from the European Commission. It has played an active part in the EU Alcohol and Health Forum and has been supportive of the WHO Global Alcohol Strategy.

It has recently completed a twoyear project, Alcohol Policy Youth Network – Youth Empowerment for a Better Life!, under the framework of the EU Health Programme, financed by the Executive Agency for Health and Consumers. The project was cofinanced by the Alliance House Foundation and IOGT-NTO Sweden.

The main objectives of the APYN project were to:

• Assess young people’s views on alcohol-related harm

• Capacitate youth NGOs to be active players in formulating and defining, implementing and evaluating alcohol policies

• Involve young people in the field of alcohol policy from local European levels

• Promote the idea of comanagement by governmental and non-governmental structures and the consultation of youth NGOs

• Support youth NGOs in strengthening their capacity to implement action through their networks

Several work packages and reports were completed as part of the APYN project:

• Impact of marketing, price and availability of alcohol on young people’s consumption

• Social inclusion and alcohol policies

• Cultural realities and differences in alcohol consumption

• Training for trainers on alcohol-related projects

• Training Course on the role of youth organisations in alcohol policy

• Advocacy School on the role of youth organisations in alcohol policy

• Toolkit on how to involve young people better in alcohol-related projects

• APYN Research project Participants’ Toolkit

All these reports can be accessed via the APYN website http:// www.apyn.org/, the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/ apyn.org or Twitter http://twitter.com/apynetwork

Information gained from the project was disseminated at the Eurocare seminar in the European Parliament “Under the influence – protecting teens from the impact of alcohol marketing”.

The report on Cultural Realities and Differences regarding alcohol consumption has been presented to the Alcohol and Health Forum. Lately, support has come from the Slovenian Ministry of Health and APYN has been run by Jan Peloza as the Interim General Coordinator from No Excuse Slovenia, Egle Tamulevičiute as the Alcohol Policy Director from the National Youth Council of Lithuania, Ingunn Aanes as the Training and Membership Director from Juvente Norway and Sofia Ribeiro as the Press and Communications Assistant from the European Medical Students’ Association Portugal.

In 2012 APYN is planning to organise a European Conference on Alcohol and Young People for around 100 young people from all European countries, as well as continuing to organise advocacy schools, introductory and advanced training courses, training for trainers and training for youth researchers.