Active Citizenship Network celebrated the 6th European Patients' Rights Day in Brussels, with a conference entitled "Active Ageing citizens at the center of EU health policy", last 15th and 16th of May 2012. The conference was fully focused on the European topic of the year “Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations”. Insofar as the number of ageing citizens is rapidly increasing (Europeans aged 65+ is expected to increase by 45% between 2008 and 2030, and even further to over 30% of the population by 2060) the issues of their access to health care services and the respect of their rights as patients are becoming central and extremely challenging.
The main objective of the project "Future Active Citizens: volunteering as an experience of democracy" is to raise the desire of becoming active citizens among young Europeans, informing them about the meaning and concrete practice of volunteering, based on the direct experience of civic and voluntary organisations.
The project will also allow voluntary organizations to develop a better understanding of their own action in a European framework and teachers to experiment a new form of informal learning.
The European event "Putting Citizens at the centre of EU Health Policy has been celebrated on the 11-12 April 2011 in the European Economic and Social Committee, Brussels.
The Charter aims to bridge the gap existing in the Community rules about the rights, duties, powers and responsibilities of civic organisations acting in the public policies cycle. The Charter was drawn up on the basis of an analysis of 50 good practices in the relationship between citizens' organisations and institutions gathered in 10 European Union countries and of the comments, feedback and suggestions of scholars, citizens' organisations, and public institutions.