• Source: Franco-German Youth Office

      • The Franco-German Youth Office (FGYO; French: Office franco-allemand pour la Jeunesse, OFAJ; German: Deutsch-Französisches Jugendwerk, DFJW) is an organisation to subsidize programs for children, adolescents and young adults. Its main goal is to intensify the Franco-German relationships through cultural exchanges for young people, with the mission of "strengthening the bonds that unite French and German youth, increasing their mutual understanding and bringing about, encouraging and carrying out meetings and exchanges".


      History


      The Youth Office was one of the first institutions created on the basis of the Élysée Treaty that was signed on January 22, 1963 in Paris. The FGYO's first initiative was organized in the summer of 1963, bringing together a few dozen French and Germans on the historic fields of Verdun.
      The FGYO was originally headquartered in Rhöndorf near Bonn, then the West German capital. In December 2000, the last employees moved out from there. It is now headquartered in Paris, with its main German office in Berlin and a branch office, which opened in 2014, in Saarbrücken.
      Since 1963 the organisation has financed projects for 9.5 million young Germans and French through participation in 382.000 exchange programs. The Franco-German Youth Office has facilitated leadership exchanges for youth organizations, as well as vocational internships and camps, town partnership, work camps, individual and family exchanges, sporting events, educational and linguistic programs, apprenticeships, and more. In 2022 it organised 5,921 events with about 122,000 participants.


      Funding


      The FGYO's funding has been increased in decisions made by the annual Franco-German Ministerial Council. It is considered to have contributed to ending the centuries of French–German enmity. The organisation is responsible for administering the Franco-German Citizen Fund (German: Bürgerfonds, French: fonds citoyen). On January 22, 2019, the two governments furthered strengthened its role by increasing its budget to almost EUR 30 million through the Treaty of Aachen.


      See also


      Franco-German high schools
      Franco-German University and Erasmus Programme
      Interrail Youth Pass
      Confederation of European Journeymen Associations


      References




      External links


      Official websites: fgyo.org (in English), ofaj.org (in French), dfjw.org (in German)

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