Action in the forest "Au"

The "Au" is a little forest next to the banks of the river "Mürz" Many people from Mürzzuschlag spend their leisure time in the forest. They go running there, walk their dogs, go for walks with their families, play football and so on. Unfortunately many young people go there to booze or take drugs. Some of them leave the place in a mess. This situation leads to a general prejudice against young people in the forest.

During the Action Project for the United Games 2005, we would like to improve the image of today’s youth in the area and to diminish the conflict between different generations. Therefore about 40 teenagers from all the UG countries will work on the revitalisation and renovation of the forest, with support from the local community. The youth group, the United Games Young Voices Austria, which is located in Mürzzuschlag, have decided to combat the prejudices and to prove that young people are able to contribute to a common welfare. They have been planning and preparing the Action Project for the past few months and they will be the main organizers of the actual project.

By doing the Action Project in the "Au", we would like to start a series of different youth-led action projects in the area around Mürzzuschlag. We would like to promote the system of youth participation and youth leadership at the municipality of Mürzzuschlag. Furthermore we would like to activate and motivate more young people to stand up and get active, and to be involved in direct action on issues which concern them.

Contact UG Austria: Mr Raimund Blaser Young Voices coordinator and organizer of United Games Austria 2005 Obere Waldrandsiedlungsgasse 11 A-8680 Mürzzuschlag AUSTRIA Mobile: +43 660 46 44 954 +46 664 124 82 24 E - Mail: raimund.blaser@stud.uni-graz.at raimund.blaser@kom.at raimund.blaser@web.de Internet: Mürzzuschlag

The Mission Control Center

This year the international youth festival the "United Games", and all the action projects, will be brought into a digital network with the help of the FH Joanneum. This network is realized and supervised by students of the "Internet Technology and Management" department. The participants of the festival will be responsible for the preparation of the texts.
The students of the "Journalism and Organisation Communication" (in short JOC) department will support them. The distributing center is the so-called "Mission Control Center", which is situated in the Audimax of the FH Joanneum in Kapfenberg. The Audimax is a big function room, where delegates from all participating countries will work together with the students on the articles for the press. The job of the "press people" is to collect, to edit and to layout received texts and pictures from the action projects in their home countries. This material, which you can access via an internet platform, is used to develop a comprehensive exhibition about the United Games during the festival week. The aim is to compose this exhibition in every participating country simultaneously and to inform people about each festival’s workshops and projects.
An additional task of the young people is to translate the edited material from their mother tongue into English. Out of these texts about the various action projects, the JOC - students will produce a daily press release that will not only be sent to the media in their country, but also to selected media in all the UG countries. The press texts will not only be directed to print media, but also to radio and TV.

The young people involved in the project will gain long lasting experience by working at the MCC. They learn how to professionally edit, analyse and layout information, and they gain additional organisational and language skills.

The Mission Control Center website is an information base for all participants as well as for all those who are interested in United Games 2005. On the website you will find detailed information about each festival, the various action projects and workshops. During the festival week, the users of the website are able to have a live connection to different action projects through webcams. There is also the possibility to have several live-stream connections through out the day. You can find this site on the internet, at mcc.unitedgames.org.

Contact the MCC at the FH JOANNEUM: University of Applied Sciences Department for Internet Technology and Management Dipl. Ing. Markus Risthaus Werk-VI-Straße 46 A-8605 Kapfenberg AUSTRIA Mobile: +43/699/10047298 E - Mail: markus@risthaus.at Markus.risthaus@fh-joanneum.at Internet: www.fh-joanneum.at Contact the Press Agency at the FH JOANNEUM: University of Applied Sciences Department for Journalism and Organisational Communication Mag. M.A. Gudrun Reimerth Alte Poststraße 149 A-8020 Graz AUSTRIA E - Mail: gudrun.reimerth@fh-joanneum.at Internet: www.fh-joanneum.at