Project „Trade Unions – a new impetus for youth participation” successfully completed

On November 28, the final conference was held in Skopje as part of the project „Trade Unions – a new impetus for youth participation”, whose coordinator is the Trade Union of Administration, Judiciary and Citizens’ Associations (UPOZ) from North Macedonia.

Representatives of Development Center for Youth Aleksandra Knežević, Anastasija Nenadović and Veljko Avramović actively contributed to realization of the conference, together with other partners from Turkiye, Slovenia, Greece and Serbia – HIZMET-IS trade union, MLADI PLUS trade union, organizations United Societies of Balkans and the Union Center for education and training, as well as the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory of the University of Belgrade, but also representatives of local administrations and international organizations interested in the topic of encouraging the activism of young union members.

The goal of the conference was to present the activities and results of the project, as well as to open a dialogue on further possibilities and ideas for activating youth sections of the trade union in shaping of public policies from local to European level, all for the sake of influencing the improvement of the position of young people in the society.

Conference was also attended by Elisa Marzano, a project officer from Brussels, thanks to whom the attendees got a set of quality information about the available opportunities at the European level, especially regarding the new ERASMUS+ open call, and the requirements within the Key Action 3 – European Youth Together.

In addition to dynamic presentations, the conference also included a panel discussion on the topic “The role of youth trade union sections in shaping European policies”, as well as work in smaller groups during which numerous ideas for continuation of the project were listed.

It was jointly stated that the concept of the trade union academy is something that should be worked on in the future, so that as many young activists as possible go through this type of non-formal training, acquiring important knowledge and skills for an active role in creating and participating in social processes of importance for young people. It was also stated that the consortium would continue to deal with this topic, with the preparation and submission of an idea to the next open call, but in a wider composition, bearing in mind that a larger number of structures from different European countries have shown interest in being part of development of this concept.

Project „Trade Unions – a new impetus for youth participation” was implemented in the period January 1, 2023 – December 31, 2024 with the support of the European Union through the ERASMUS+ program, KA3 – European Youth Together.