Dear café babel friends,

It is with mix feelings of pleasure and sadness that I inform you of my recent decision to take on a new challenge as Secretary General of the European Youth Press, an umbrella organisation based in Brussels. My time as staff member of Babel International will be soon ending and my functions taken over by a new, gifted and passionate Community Coordinator.

Launching the e-community was a dream come true and an amazing opportunity to work with many of you at different levels. I was happy to see so many local teams embracing the community while others rightfully challenged it to make it theirs. It was also rewarding to welcome new movers and shakers in the babelblogosphere which is continuously growing in terms of traffic, input and interactivity. And last but not least, it was truly inspiring to work closely with the Editorial and Communications team in Paris, a mix of European crazy people :-) who deserve so much credit for the magazine's success. Thank you Adri and Alex for  all the brainstorming meetings and the fun times within and outside of café babel- there will be many more to come, I'm sure. A big thanks to Cédric for always being a click away from me and my technical questions. Thanks to Fernando and Prune for your colorful personalities which have already brought so much to this project. And thank you to the rest of you in Paris for always welcoming me with a smile and new ideas.

Coordinating cafebabel.com's blogosphere and babelforums was an opportunity for me to realize the needs of young European journalists. My new responsibilities are therefore a natural professional development which I hope cafebabel.com will also benefit from. I have already started working part time for the European Youth Press and strongly believe in its mission and vision to assist young media makers across Europe. I am especially looking forward to assist, with the support of an amazing network of volunteers across Europe, young journalists and initiatives similar to cafebabel.com  develop their understanding of European journalism and what it takes today to be a journalist in a multilingual and multicultural environment.

I encourage you to sign up to the European Youth Press newsletter to learn more about how to participate in its trainings, awards or events. Stay tuned especially for this year's biggest and sequel event: the European Youth Media Days 2008, taking place in October, in Brussels.

Thank you all for your energy and creativity! And keep in touch, ce n'est qu'un aurevoir.

Best,

Vanessa aka Vané


(credit photo: Jorden van der Ven)