Defensa y Yo – US Embassy and Consulate in Spain and Andorra

“Defensa y Yo: My Role as a Citizen in the Face of New Threats Security and Defense Challenges

“Defensa y Yo” (“Defense and I”) is an initiative of the US Embassy in partnership with the organization Esglobal, which aims to educate young people on defense and security issues. The project consists of three phases, starting with lectures and debates in Spanish public universities on a variety of topics related to security and defense. During the second phase, students who took part in the debates take part in a competition organized by the Embassy and Esglobal that proposes solutions to some of the security and defense challenges raised by the debates. Finally, a winner will be selected by each university, with winners traveling to Brussels to visit NATO Headquarters and other security and defense institutions.

Defensa y Yo 3.0 (2022-2023) – The program is currently running.

With the Defensa y Yo 3.0 project, Esglobal and the US Embassy in Spain are trying to increase knowledge and understanding of security and defense culture. The project is a continuation of the work carried out since 2020 with the first two editions of Defensa y Yo with the participation of several Spanish public universities.

The program is designed to help students recognize and understand the changing nature of security threats. To achieve this, Esglobal and the US Embassy have planned a multitude of lecture debates in 16 Spanish universities by mid-2023. The lecture debates are followed by the competition, in which students analyze how their generation might face one of the challenges raised by the lectures and propose possible solutions.

The winners of the competition, one per university, travel to Brussels to visit NATO headquarters and discover first-hand the heart of Western defences. More information.

To view the first winners’ work and sessions from the Defense y Yo conference series, visit: https://www.esglobal.org/defensa-y-yo-3-0/

Past Issues

Defense and Yo 2.0 (2022)

You can see the works of the winners and the sessions of the Defensa y Yo 2.0 conference cycle. in: DEFENSA Y YO 2.0 – Esglobal – Política,

Defense and Yo 1.0 (2021)

All the debates of this first edition can be consulted on the esglobal website, as well as the works of the winners: https://www.esglobal.org/concurso-defensa-y-yo/