EUROPEA (l’Europe de l’Enseignement Agricole), established at that famous meeting in Ettelbruck (LU) in January 1993, has always relied on the enthusiasm and voluntary work of people who believed in it. One of them was Jakob Kjaer (DK), who created and edited the EUROPEA Newsletters, the first channel of information within our association. Following his retirement, he handed it over to Georges Demeester (BE) but times were changing and paper based information exchange was quickly replaced by online communication.
Henrik Dethlefsen (DK), former Secretary General on Jakob Kjaer:
“As a Dane I am particularly impressed by Jakob’s energy and commitment. Then secretary of The Danish Association of Agricultural Colleges, he was allowed by the board of that association “to spend a couple of weeks on EUROPEA in 1993″.
With this modest starting point, he involved himself in a lot of international activities among which EUROPEA was the most important. In the following years he served as president, vice president ordinary board member, etc. He was fluent in English, German, French and Italian, which removed many, many obstacles facing him.
And from 1993 till his retirement in 2001 he edited the EUROPEA Newsletters, which appeared three of four times a year in French and in English. He played a similar important role in EUROPEA Denmark, being the Secretary from 1993 through 2001.
Eagerly, he worked for the continuous involvement of Danish agricultural schools in EUROPEA, and I tend to think, that he was particularly proud, when hosting one of the first EUROPEA seminars under the so-called PETRA project. PETRA was financed by the EEC, involved Italy, France, Belgium and Denmark, and aimed at developing teacher training and teaching modules focusing on environmental issues related to agriculture. The first meeting in Denmark was located in Tune 11-16 May 1993, that was immediately before the EUROPEA Tune meeting (Newsletter no.1). “
SALUTE THE FOUNDERS AND LONG LIVE EUROPEA!
Acknowledgements: many thanks to Henrik (DK) 🙂
Learn more about the foundation and the history of EUROPEA – HERE.
