How to visit 28 European countries in 90 minutes!

Our guest blogger today is Nathalie Symens, a ONE Youth Ambassador in Belgium.

Youth Ambassadors campaigning in front of mini Big Ben

Did you know that in Brussels, you can to travel to all 28 Member States of the European Union in just 90 minutes? It’s true – ONE’s Belgian Youth Ambassadors have just done it! And no, we didn’t choose the boring way of going from door to door at the European Parliament. We visited Mini Europe!

However, this wasn’t just a fun day out. We were collecting photos to use as part of our ‘Protect Aid. Save Lives’ campaign. We wanted to gather pictures with our message to European leaders, in front of the most famous monuments of each country such as the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben.

This is because in the coming weeks, European leaders are deciding on the 2016 EU budget which includes money that is spent on aid for the world’s poorest people. But some Member States want to cut the aid budget proposed by the European Commission. This is despite the fact that, under the EU budget, it would only cost 5 Euro cents per citizen per day to keep up the amazing progress that aid is achieving.

As this is the European Year for Development and the new Global Goals have been set, the EU has promised to do its part to end extreme poverty globally by 2030. Cutting the budget will make it impossible to keep the promises that have been made. So the Belgian Youth Ambassadors have been getting creative with facts, figures and pictures to make our point.

As well as collecting signatures for the ‘Protect Aid. Save Lives’ petition, we’ll be tweeting our photos of European landmarks with our message to each of the 28 Finance Ministers.

We are also delivering lottery tickets to them, their representatives in Brussels and Members of European Parliament with the message ‘Could it be your lucky day?’ Our point is serious though: saving lives should not be a lottery.

If you live in Europe, please get involved in the campaign and help us tell European leaders to protect aid and save lives!

Sign the petition now!