Month by month, the 2019 Freedom Drive is approaching (let us remind you that the final dates are 1st – 3rd October 2019). We advise those of you that are considering to come and join us, in the celebration of our 30th birthday among others, to start already planning your trip.
One of the most important things in this aspect is the funding, due to the many expenses that may occur (air tickets, hotels etc.). Because it might be a tricky and time consuming process (no matter if it is for an individual or for a group), we encourage you not to leave it for the last moment.
Unfortunately, as in previous years, ENIL doesn’t have the capacity to financially support the participation of its members in the Freedom Drive, so everyone who is going to attend it needs to find their own ways to fundraise. In addition, one of the most popular fundraising options of the Freedom Drivers the past years, the funding from the MEPs, may not be available to all this time. We have the European elections in May 2019, so the new Parliament will not be in session before end of summer 2019. Moreover, the newly elected MEPs will need some time, with getting settled, before they will be able to invite visitors. So, please don’t assume that your MEP will be able to support you. However, we do encourage you to contact your MEP(s) as soon as possible, to see if they have any funding left, or in case they know of another source of funding. This is where you can search by country and find e-mails: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/home
To support you as much as we can, ENIL has also prepared a fundraising guide with various ideas that might be helpful for you! You can read it here. And if come up with other ideas, don’t hesitate to share them with us, and we will update the guide!
Reminder: Call for Freedom Drive national coordinators
Last but not least, we would like to remind you about our call for national coordinators – a voluntary, but highly important role for each Freedom Drive. If you are interested in this role, or you want to learn more about it, check our previous article (where you will find also the first schedule of the event) or contact Kamil Goungor, our Development Officer and contact point for all the Freedom Drive coordinators at: kamil.goungor@enil.eu.
We already have some people that expressed their interest in doing the national/local/organizational coordination (thank you everyone!), and we are going to publish their contact details next month. This way, everyone who is interested in participating in the Freedom Drive will know who to contact in his/her area. But, we are still missing some countries and we want the whole Europe to come and join us, so don’t hesitate to take on the role, and we will support you as much as possible!
Even if you do not want to be a coordinator, do not hesitate to spread this article among your networks, especially if you know someone that you believe would be interested. You can also send his/her contact details to Kamil and he will approach them directly.
To stay updated about the 2019 Freedom Drive, please make sure to check our website, the Freedom Drive Facebook page, as well as our Newsletters.
#2019FreedomDrive #FD2019
