How it works

General Information

Since 2003, the UEEH adopted a self-managed functioning, non-hierarchical, resulting in the collective management of all tasks of the event, but also those throughout the year.

In practice, this means that:

• during the event, all aspects of the event are handled daily by all its participants to take over the project, space and time shared. It is to enable everyone to take charge of the event in its multiple dimensions.
• during the year, those who have wished to continue their investment and have been mandated, will join the Board of Directors and will be have to ensure the renewal of the UEEH from a year to the another, following the directions given by the participants during the closing General Assembly. It is also possible to invest oneself on a few specific projects by joining or creating a regional or thematic center.

The General Assemblies

Several general meetings punctuate the event. They are essential tools for collective management, and they ensure power sharing between all participants.

The commissions

The organization is ideally composed of a minimum of 25 commissioners who are usually from several cities in France but sometimes also from other countries.

The commissions are autonomous from each other, and meet all together 4 or 5 times a year, during weekends dedicated to the general organization. These work weekends are held in bigger cities to limit travel expenses.

Presentation of the commissions

Event (MACO): Ensures the logistics of the event (location, accommodation, accessibility) and administrative (registration, rental, etc.). It includes an administration/logistics subcommittee and a safer place subcommittee. Responsible for the facilities and the safety of participants during the event.

Health: Works on health access issues. On issues of community health, sexual health and substance consumption. Creates alliances with associations to provide a thematic infokiosk, to organize screening moments, have a risk reduction post (RDR) and collaborate with street medics.

Popular Education (Educ’Pop): Creates different content – congresses, workshops, health, thematic projects, movie screenings, etc. Invites people, associations and collectives to come get hold of the UEEH. In collaboration with the COMIN, prepares the international forum, where people from different activism contexts are invited to discuss a theme chosen and prepared in advance.

International (COMIN): Enables the arrival of international persons and/or collectives in relation to embassies/consulates from about twenty countries. Collaborates with Educ’Pop to prepare the international forum. Transmits the needs of the participants who came through the COMIN to the different commissions.

Communication (COMEX): Ensures internal and external communication to inform adherents, but also provides promotion to new audiences.Maintains relations with all the UEEH partners, such as institutional partners.

Coordination of financing (COCOFI): Establishes budgets, manages accounts and accounting, finalizes the activity report that closes each edition. COCOFI acts as a resource for the commissions, and communicates the state of the finances so that the general organization can make collective decisions regarding the budget.

Archives/Transmission/Self-Management (ATACI): Enables the sharing and accessibility of knowledge for everyone. Provides tools that facilitate horizontality and self-management of the project in its multiple dimensions, both during the year and during the event. Sets up the archiving of the event.

COCRIP: Works to make the UEEH not only more accessible but also to make it a space for disabled activism.

Jeux de Langue (Language games): Ensures the linguistic accessibility of the different documents and information during the year, along with the meetings. During the events, Jeux de Langue is in contact with the BLA collective to provide the translation of the highlights of the edition and its workshops in English, Arabic, Spanish and French.

The UEEH are an event where it is considered that power needs to be shared by all without discrimination. This will requires constant attention towards implicit power dynamics. To this end, the commissions members see to stick to their prerogatives throughout the edition.

Clusters

A cluster is a group of people who work on a project outside the commissions but in coordination with them.

Clusters allow to create dynamics outside of commissions and to alleviate some of the workload for the commissioners.

Therefore, they can help to further the development of different projects, but also allow new ones to emerge.

Some examples of clusters:

• Funding Cluster: research and write grant applications, drawing on COCOFI’s work and commission needs.
• Registration Cluster: administer registration, make sure that all of the information necessary to the proper conduct of the edition is provided.
• Reception Cluster: welcome participants during the edition.

Means of action

The main resource of the UEEH is the « human » involvement: the volunteering of its participants. It could not happen whithout this, neither during the event itself nor throughout the year.

It is important to keep in mind that this collective involvement is really what enriches the UEEH, and that this commitment must arise from a personal approach. For this reason no one is paid, neither seminar speakers, nor artists or people who carry projects, to put everyone on an equal footing and not prioritize knowledge. This concept is very important in the UEEH policy.

To this we can add the providing of materials for free (which may include in particular one or more vehicles).

The UEEH are financed by institutional partners, sometimes private associations, and by the registration fee of the participants and specifically their donations.