For over a year, the European Youth Card Association brought together activists across the EU to get out the youth vote. Over 100 people were involved in this campaign to get young people to vote during the EU election in June 2024. This article is a celebration of their amazing effort. 

The campaign, called MoreIn24, centred around the actions of 50+ young changemakers that organised local events and communications stunts in 18 EU countries. With the help of EYCA members, their efforts helped ensure that the 2024 EU elections saw the highest ever rate of participation.

The ambition was simple: raise young people's awareness, excitement and understanding ahead of the 2024 European elections. This was done mainly in three ways:

• Educate young voters about the EU elections;
• Make institutional language more understandable to young people by explaining the work of the EU institutions in a youth-friendly way;
• Raise awareness of the role of EU institutions and how it impacts young people’s daily lives.

 In broad terms, the campaign involved young people in three ways:

• Trainings: To ensure that the changemakers had the skills and knowledge to run their actions linked to the EU elections, the campaign team organised different trainings. Two were held in person, with all changemakers and coordinators travelling to a city for a few days (in this case, Torino in July 2023 and Porto in April 2024) - sessions included a look into EU knowledge building, debate organising et comms planning. Two other trainings were held online with a focus on a specific topic (i.e. how to boost media engagement, and how to run a successful debate with MEPs).
• Awareness-raising events: The changemakers were tasked with organising their own local events, to engage with fellow young people and share information about the EU elections. By avoiding a top-down, one-size-fits-all strategy, the changemakers were free to choose the topic and style of event that best fits their local realities. These events showed just how diverse youth civic engagement can be; and how successful informal interactions usually are. The aim here was to remove the ‘institutional’ from the EU (think comedy night, pub quizzes and slam poetry).
• Debates with EP candidates: Getting young people to engage with EU candidates (and vice-versa) wasn’t game, set, match. It meant navigating the complexities of pre-elections; ensuring that the conversations remained balanced yet useful to young voters; and trying to reassure young Europeans that taking an interest in what happens at the EU level really does matter. Still, the changemakers pulled it off.
• Online communications: It’s no secret that many young people get their news from Instagram and TikTok. As such, creating educational yet non-institutional content on social media is key to ensuring young people know about the EU elections. Taking inspiration from trend-setting young influencers, we feel we showcased the main aspects of the EU while keeping the necessary light-touch. Take a look for yourself: https://www.instagram.com/europeanyouthcard/ 

Beyond the lengthy sentences, our project did reach some impressive stats:

• We collectively organised 113 awareness-raising events and 40 debates; and even more impressive is the diversity of activities.
• We engaged with 8869 young voters, pretty impressive considering all the organising that goes into creating the space for such interactions.
• We welcomed 158 candidates for the EU elections to our events, and we provided the opportunity for them to chat with young citizens.
• And we collected over 500 postcards from young voters, sharing their thoughts, ideas and questions with MEPs. We'll be handing these over to MEPs in September to help them start their mandate with a fresh perspective. 

If you’re interested, here are some events that we’re particularly happy with:

• “Laugh now, vote in June”, a stand-up comedy night organised in Romania to shed light on EU elections in a humorous way;
• Pub Quizzes, in Austria, the Netherlands and 10 other countries, to test young participants on their knowledge about the EU institutions and elections in a game-like fashion;
• Event in a skate park, in Portugal, where young people came together to socialise and visualise their priorities through urban art;
• EU scavenger hunt in Belgium, where participants, clue after clue, got to discover fun facts about the elections and the EU;
• Theatre pieces, in Italy “L’Europa non cade dal cielo”, a play that retraced the stages that have characterised the path of European integration, through images and musical pieces; and in Spain “Tretas Teatrales Internacionales”, a play in which different topics related to youth and politics were discussed, followed by a short debate and a brief explanation of the European elections;
• Activities in schools across the EU, where informal education served as a tool to raise 
• awareness among young students about the EU elections, mainly for first-time voters;
• Slam poetry in Hungary, where participants could create their own slam regarding the importance of the elections, democracy and voting;
• Photo contest and exhibition, in Spain, where young photographers had to find a way to represent European identity;

 Looking back at everything we did this year, we're amazed at the energy that everyone brought to the big and small actions across Europe. It's hard to know the impact this campaign had on the actual turnout of the elections, and we're certainly only one piece of a much larger puzzle. But we can still be massively proud of our campaign!

 PS. in case you missed the MoreIn24 wrap-up video, head to Instagram to give it some love: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9C17qbs1fJ/