Dear Maureen
has accompanied and supported e.p.a. for 40 years in different ways and on different levels:
Maureen supported young people from Liverpool to participate in European exchanges — first with MDF (Merseyside Development Foundation), together with her dear friend Ruth Behrend and her foundation; later by setting up e.p.a. Liverpool together with Tony, Paul Bostock, ensuring the transparent flow of money paid in and redistributed.
This support was remarkable. It made it possible for the group of Scousers to run fundraising activities, which not only covered part of their own travel costs but often allowed the Liverpool group to share funds with other young people in need — in solidarity.
Maureen’s support was also amazing in that respect, as she — an academic and professor (Pro-Chancellor of John Moores University) — appreciated what young people from challenging backgrounds experienced during International Youth Exchanges.
They learned playfully with non-formal methods, and many of them, for the first time, felt confident to learn and were encouraged to (re-) engage in schools and universities.
As Chair of e.p.a. Liverpool,
Maureen also backed the Liverpudlians to host International Youth Exchanges and seminars in often extraordinary venues, like the Adelphi.
Last time before Brexit in 2019, she fought — with her great skills in advocacy — with the British Agency for the Erasmus funding, to eventually facilitate the Scousers’ hospitality.
In serios distress at sea, the e.p.a. team in Hamburg was deeply grateful for Maureen’s salvation efforts — her urgently needed skills to understand new EU application procedures and fill in correctly hundreds of pages of the application for the CSC grant (funds for Civil Society Cooperation in the field of youth).
Maureen successfully steered the e.p.a. ship into calmer waters with a bountiful catch.
Sharing e.p.a.’s mission and vision
Maureen supported Tony in his great commitment as a playworker and responsible co-ordinator of the e.p.a. network in over 40 countries.
She cherished and co-developed the e.p.a. concept over the past decades.
We regard the following text as a precious gift from Maureen for e.p.a.
Her words will continue enlightening us on our way:
“Why is e.p.a. special?
e.p.a. is special because:
- of the dedication and single-minded experience, expertise and pro-young-people stance adopted, maintained and developed by key staff which permeates every aspect of the whole organisation
- inside its activities, even when they are organised by adults, young people are understood, listened to, valued and embraced as the core of the organisation and the reason for its existence
- e.p.a. is a heady mix of equality and diversity in action
- its mixture of fun and seriousness in vastly different types of environment of disadvantage
- it always sees the opportunities available for young people even when the young people can’t see them themselves
- because the needs, wishes and aspirations of young people are always valued and respected and never ridiculed or dismissed as unreasonable
- young people are never told something can’t be done without an explanation as to why and what alternative could be on offer instead
- e.p.a. staff never got side-tracked into taking their focus off the grassroots workers and young people and never had their heads swayed by politicians and the limelight they could have enjoyed
- it stays in contact with significant numbers of young people throughout successive generations
- it acts as the repository of young people’s international experiences and helps ensure such knowledge is passed on and shared in genuine multicultural settings
- it maintains a core of information and belief in young people regardless of the changing socio-economic and political situation
- it never patronises young people and it acts as a bridge between them and politicians rather than acting as their mouthpiece or representatives
- it never talks for young people but with young people
- e.p.a. provides unique opportunities for many young people to grow within the strange mix of rights-based authority, anarchy, freedom and support that characterises their activities”
Dearest Maureen,
From our heads and hearts Thank you, Gracias, Merci, Obrigado, Grazie, Sbacibo, Efcharisto, Dankeschön
We remember you gratefully.
Hamburg, 8th August 2025
e.p.a. Team and Board