MORNING
ARRIVAL & OPENING PLENARY.
Doors, warm drinks, and time to find your people. Then the whole room in one plenary, with the year’s question on the table – and an opening session designed to get you out of your chair.
THE FIFTH EDITION
THE VALE SYMPOSIUM
One day on leading with your values when half the work happens online. Keynotes, peer-led workshops, and the kind of conversation a video call can’t hold.
Hosted by The VALE – a non-profit training young leaders across Europe since 2018.
- WHEN
- Saturday, 5 December 2026 – one full day, morning to evening
- WHERE
- Hamburg – venue announced with the programme
- WHO
- Youth workers, practitioners, founders, volunteers – and the curious
- ENTRY
- Free, limited seats – registration via Luma
- LANGUAGE
- English
The theme
01 – THE THEME
You lead people you mostly meet through a screen.
The meetings moved online. So did the conflicts, and the care. But values don’t transmit by themselves. Neither does trust.
So what does value-driven leadership look like now?
We’re giving that question one full day. One room. Hamburg.
02 – THE PROGRAMME
ONE DAY,
BUILT LIKE A JOURNEY.
From first coffee to last conversation. The full programme lands in December 2026 – here is the arc of it.
MIDDAY
LUNCH, TOGETHER.
An unhurried lunch break. Half the best conversations happen over food – so we gave them their own slot. Catering details land with the full programme.
AFTERNOON, INTO EVENING
KEYNOTES & WORKSHOPS.
Keynotes worth showing up early for. Rounds of peer-led workshops in small rooms – real questions, ideas you can actually use next week. Quiet corners for people who’d rather not “network”, and a closing raffle worth sticking around for.
This is the shape, not the timetable. Exact times, rooms, and speakers land with the full programme.
03 – THE PEOPLE
PEOPLE,
NOT PANELS.
Anyone can take a seat – the Symposium is free and open to all, and everyone who registers takes part fully: in the workshops, at the table, in the conversation. When we say youth leaders, we mean the people who power youth organisations – volunteers, trainers, founders, board members – whatever their age or job title.
Anchoring the room is a cohort of fifty youth leaders from across Europe, joined by practitioners, partner organisations, and anyone curious enough to show up. Many of the workshops are led by people in the room, sharing the tools, dilemmas, and breakthroughs of their own work. Keynote names land ahead of December – reserve a seat and you’ll hear them first.
Whether you come to learn, to teach, or simply to think out loud with people who take these questions seriously – you’re welcome here.
- 2018
- TRAINING LEADERS SINCE
- 130+
- PROGRAMME ALUMNI
- 29
- NATIONALITIES
- 1,800+
- PEOPLE REACHED
- 5TH
- SYMPOSIUM
04 – THE VENUE
HAMBURG
53.55° N – 9.99° E
December in Hamburg: harbour lights, wet cobblestones, and steam rising off the Glühwein. We’re locking in a venue with character, easy to reach – the kind of place that makes a day feel like an occasion.
Hosted by The VALE
The Symposium is hosted by The VALE – The Value-driven Advanced Leadership Association, an international non-profit specialising in youth leadership education. We support the creation of aware, skilled, and value-driven young leaders for a peaceful, inclusive, and sustainable world.
BUILT WITH PARTNERS
This Symposium will only be as good as the network behind it.
If you believe in the cause, there are many ways to be part of it. If any of this resonates, write to George at george@thevale.eu — we would love to talk.
Partner with us →- Backing the Symposium. Sponsoring the catering, the venue, travel grants for participants from further afield, the keynote, or the documentation that lets the day’s ideas travel beyond the room.
- Bringing your people. Opening the doors of your network so the right Hamburg practitioners, NGO leaders, and civil society colleagues can be in the room.
- Contributing to the programme. Proposing a speaker, a workshop, or a perspective from your field that belongs in this conversation.
- Lending what you’ve got. A venue we should know about, AV gear, design work, documentation skills, or anything else that helps us put on a Symposium worthy of the topic.
VOICES FROM PAST EDITIONS
WHAT PEOPLE
TAKE HOME.
I think VALE really changed my life, and I want everyone to have the same experience.
The whole webinar was very enriching for me! If I think of the biggest take-home message, it would be tips and tricks on how leaders can contribute to every stage of the group dynamics, and what leaders can really do to encourage positive flow in the team.
It was a great experience to step out of my professional bubble of leadership training and witness how other trainers work with the topics you included in your curriculum. I was able to collect quite a list of ideas for how to enhance my own programming and useful nuggets to introduce in my work.
05 – REGISTER
RESERVE
YOUR SEAT.
–DAYS
–HOURS
–MINUTES
–SECONDS
FREE ENTRYLIMITED SEATSREGISTRATION VIA LUMA
Saturday, 5 December 2026 – one day in Hamburg. Seats are free and limited by the venue, not by our enthusiasm. When it’s full, it’s full.
Questions? george@thevale.eu
06 – THE TEAM
THE ORGANISING
TEAM.
A crew from five different countries putting the Symposium together. Got a question? Write to the person who owns it.
-
Erik Sundberg
Partner Outreach & Website
Sweden
-
Markéta Forejtová
Communications & Social Media
Czech Republic
-
-
Louisa Richter
Finance & Project Coordination
Germany
-
Mario David Tabares
Educational Framework
Argentina
-
Lotta Oswald
Venue & Local Partnerships
Germany