6th International Congress of Finno-Ugric Youth
November 2003
First Announcement

The Youth Association of Finno-Ugric Peoples is an umbrella organisation uniting non-governmental youth organisations of peoples speaking Uralic (Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic) languages. Among the present members, Saami, Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Seto, Ingrian Finnish, Karelian, Vepsian, Erzya and Moksha (Mordvin), Komi, Mari, Udmurt and Nenets organisations are represented as well as the territorial organisations of indigenous peoples of the Russian North from the Khanty-Mansi, Yamal Nenets and Nenets Autonomous Districts. The majority of member organisations represent the youth of a local indigenous people but some support groups of indigenous peoples and student organisations from Finland and Estonia and other organisations are also represented among the members.

The Association's executive body, the Council of Co-ordinators, held its session in Yoshkar-Ola (Republic of Mari El, the Russian Federation) in March 2003. In accordance with the Council's decision, the 6th Congress of the Association will be held in Yoshkar-Ola in November 2003, with the Mari indigenous youth organisation U Vii given the task to organise the Congress.
According to the provisional plans, the Congress will take place after November 20. Exact dates will be announced soon.

The agenda of the Congress will include:
a) approval of the new Statutes and Rules of Procedure for the Association
b) admission of new members into the Association
c) election of the executive bodies of the Association
d) formation of working groups

Representatives of the following are invited to participate in the Congress:
a) current Co-ordinators as representatives of peoples (one representative for each people); for peoples currently not represented with co-ordinators, one known youth activist each;
b) current member organisations, one representative each;
c) organisations willing to become members of the Association, one representative each;
d) the Council of Elders of the Association

Representatives of current member organisations should present a copy of the Statutes of their organisation and the mandate to represent the organisation.

The housing and catering costs for the representatives of member organisations, co-ordinators and members of the Council of Elders will be covered by the organisers. There will be no refund for travel costs. Representatives of organisations willing to join the Association as well as observers will have to pay a participation fee covering catering and housing. The participation fee will be announced in the next announcement.

Applications for participation should be sent to:
the Mari youth organisation U Vii
Anatoly Svetlakov
phone +7 8362 12 32 66; fax +7 8262 12 31 68
or
(Russian, Mari, English, Estonian)

Additional information is available from
Eduard Chemyshev
+358 504 716 048

(Finnish, Mari, Russian) and

Vasli Petrov
+358 415 012 584

(English, Mari, Finnish, Russian)

Please distribute this announcement to all whom it may concern or interest.