France: Cafè Babel joins Vita Europe’s network

Monika Oelz, 26, is project and communications manager for Cafè Babel, an online European community and magazine that has just joined Vita Europe?s network of media partners.

Monika, who is Austrian, has worked for Café Babel at their headquarters in Paris for nearly two years, the first nine months as a paid volunteer. ?There is a very French formula?, explains Monika, ?called ?voluntariat associatif? that enables young volunteers to gain work experience within non profit organisations, it doesn?t cost the associations anything as it is funded by the government, and it is better than an internship because it guarantees the volunteer a salary equal to the minimum wage. It was a great learning experience for me?.

What is Cafè Babel?
Cafebabel.com is a community based media ? not just a magazine but a vibrant European community. What this means is that through blogs, forums and the extended Café Babel network, readers can contribute to the contents of the website with their opinions, by participating in and launching debates. And this is really what makes Café Babel so special.

What does Café Babel aim to do?
Our aim is to build a truly European public opinion, we don?t want to publish institutional news but rather give an idea of what life is really like for Europeans in today?s Europe. For example, we have a programme called Europe on the ground where we send our journalists ? all of different nationalities – to different European cities so that they can discover them first hand and tell us what they are like. We have 25 local ?cafebabelian? teams dotted around Europe that our journalists can rely on and who help them learn their way around.

Who writes and translates the articles in your Magazine?
Cafè Babel is based on professional-amateur journalism. We have about 1 thousand volunteer authors and translators spread across Europe? some contribute once a year and others every week, about two thirds are translators and the rest are authors. Volunteer contributions are then centralized by our team of professional journalists ? one for every language, so at the moment there are 6 as we are still waiting for funding for the Catalan version.

What relationship do you have with European institutions?
We are funded by many different institutions and organisations, some private and other public but we are independent in the sense that we have total control over our editorial content. We certainly promote dialogue between Europe and European institutions, for example we are launching a debate on the European elections next year through our website, basically it will be a platform where people can discuss and express their views. I think that this is something that the commission really wants, a pan-European space, but at the same time we are not under their influence in any way.

Do you know if European politicians read Café Babel?
Yes, we know from our newsletter send outs that they do. Also, recently there was interest from the European Parliament in one of our dossiers on job mobility, they wanted to know more about our findings.

What kind of Europe do you hope to contribute to?
A pan-European Europe, where there is space for debate, where the new generation communicates with each other and learns from each other?s experiences. A place where more is on offer than what can be found in the mainstream media, where young people can travel and exchange freely.

What challenges do young Europeans face nowadays?
I think that there is at the moment a sort of contradiction between what is expected and what is on offer. On the one hand Europeans want to travel, they want to live abroad and work abroad but this is not always possible or easy ? I think the challenge is to enable all people, not just rich Europeans to be mobile in Europe.

Where does Europe end for Café Babel?
We don?t have political boundaries and don?t believe in confining our European vision to the 27 member states. For example, we have local teams in Istanbul and sooner or later there will also be one in Ukraine. Europe will expand in the future, and anyway I think what counts is whether people feel European or not.

More info:
www.cafebabel.com