Final meeting on the project “Voice of Youth is the Voice of the Future” held

After the initial training – Trade Union Academy in Čanj (Montenegro), local actions aimed at raising the level of youth activism and the accompanying digital campaign with the aim of dissemination of important messages to young people, above all on the topic of union membership as one of the forms of youth organizing and action, the project team in expanded composition gathered in Ub (Serbia) to jointly summarize impressions and dedicate themselves to plans for the future.

Representatives were delegated by the project coordinator – the Association for Education and Development, and its partners – Development Center for Youth, as host of the meeting, the Trade Union Education Center Banja Luka and the Trade Union Center for Education and Training Skopje, with the presence of representatives of the trade unions of administration and judiciary from Republika Srpska and Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro, as well as the trainers’ team on the project.

“It has been jointly concluded that, although all activities were carried out with quality and according to the plan, young people, including young union activists as a significant category of active youth, are not aware of their own power when they are united, as well as different possibilities for action, which is why in the future it would be necessary to pay even more attention to work with this target group if we want empowered and active young people who participate in important social processes”, said Aleksandra Knežević, program director of Development Center for Youth, after the meeting.

Nevertheless, it was especially underlined that the cooperation between trade union and youth sector gave extraordinary results, since many young trade union activists encountered non-formal education methods for the first time, which in the long run would contribute to a greater level of their participation in various consultative and decision-making processes on behalf of and for young people.

Partners expressed their desire to continue working together in the future, using this meeting to explore modalities for continuing and expanding cooperation in 2024.

The project “Voice of youth is the voice of the future” is supported by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe, and in addition to the named partners, it also included young activists from Slovenia, Greece and Turkey, as well as the expert contribution of the Institute for Youth Development KULT from Sarajevo.