On December 21, 2021, through an online event, a Promotional event was held at which the Initial Study on Youth Trends was presented within the project “Youth Participation towards Strong and Sustainable Community Development”, funded by the European Union.

The event was attended by young people, representatives of civil society organizations and international organizations, youth officials and representatives of local youth councils.

The event was opened by Zoran Ilieski, Team Leader of the project and Irena Ivanova, Program Manager at the Delegation of the European Union. “We are in a period of implementation of the law on youth participation and youth policies, we believe that the project will significantly contribute to its implementation, especially in terms of establishing more systematic cooperation with civil society towards essential youth participation. With the project, we will directly support the work of local youth officials, contribute to the development of volunteering and assist municipalities in developing local youth policies, promoting non-violent communication and gender equality.”, said Zoran Ilieski, Team Leader of the project and Executive Director of Coalition of youth organizations SEGA.

“The quality of life and the perception of young people about the future in our country is not at an enviable level and young people think that wages are low and the price of products is rising and that makes it difficult to have the standard of living they want. Young people’s free time comes down to visiting cafes and watching TV, which is far from enough for a good quality of life. Young people think that the best way and motivation to get involved in decision-making at the local level is through CSOs, which is a great opportunity to get involved given that most CSOs involved in this research are involved in youth participation in public life.”, said Sofija Georgievska, lead researcher on the Initial Study on Youth Trends.

You can watch the online event at the following link.

The project “Youth Participation towards Strong and Sustainable Community Development” is funded by the European Union and implemented by Coalition of Youth Organizations SEGA as the main implementer together with the partners SOS Children’s Village North Macedonia, Volunteers Center Skopje and Association Women’s Forum Tetovo. The project aims to improve the quality of youth policy implementation based on structural cooperation and substantial participation of networked civil society, thus contributing to an independent and sustainable civil society supported by a supportive environment that encourages participatory and gender-sensitive youth policy-making processes. The implementation period is January 2021 – April 2024.