International Day of Youth – second year in a row!
For the second time in a row the Youth Council of Belgrade was the only organization that have celebrated the International Day of Youth on August 12 – a very important day for the youth all over the globe, established in early 90’s by the United Nations. A great multimedia event have been organized in front of the Albania Palace in Knez Mihajlova street and have entertained a great number of young people as well as all the citizens of Belgrade that have been walking through Knez Mihajlova street in that time. The Youth Council of Belgrade and Balkan Youth Union have had this event organized in collaboration with European Movement in Serbia and EBCO Balkans.
Unlike most of the organizations from countries that celebrate this day as a festival of youth, the Youth Council of Belgrade and Balkan Youth Union used this occasion to draw public attention to the growing problems of young people. Last year the focus was on the lack of government care for youth.
One of the greatest problems of youth in our country is the obligatory recruitment so we focused on this issue in our event this year. Many young intellectuals refuse to come back to or leave Serbia because of the recruitment obligation. By adopting the Decree on Civil Service and the beginning of civil service last December, the process of solving this problem had begun. Establishment of the Info Centre for Conscientious Objection was one of the instruments for controlling serious disadvantages of Decree implementation. Beside the recruitment obligation, we have also drawn attention to the unemployment issue at young people as well as their very low life standard. The program of economic empowerment of youth through entrepreneurship trainings with the target group of the high school students was also promoted.
About fifteen volunteers of Youth Council of Belgrade and Balkan Youth Union shared 7000 leaflets about conscientious objection and economic empowerment of youth.
Media were very much interested in our event, as well as they were last year, due to the goal of the event which is, among other activities, drawing public’s attention. The celebration of the International day of Youth was mentioned by four TV channels, (RTS, B-92, RTV Studio-B and TV Metropolis), three radio stations (Radio B-92, Radio Beograd 1 program, Radio 202) and seven daily newspapers.
