You(th) decide – participant Natália's opinion / EN
You(th) decide - final conference - participant Natália's opinion / SK
On September 12th, participants of the You(th) Decide! training from Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia met in the Polish town of Ryglice with the aim of sharing the successes and results of their local meetings. The training focused on youth participation, motivating young people towards civic engagement, and informing them about opportunities to get involved in their community.
We started our meeting with activities that helped us get to know each other better, and these served as a basis for further workshops where we worked in international teams. We shared how each of us interprets the word 'participation,' and based on these opinions, we created four definitions.
We learned about the situation of young people in other countries. We shared the needs, goals, perspectives, and successes that individual groups achieved in their countries during local meetings. It was very interesting to hear about the projects they are involved in within their organizations. Later, in national teams, we began preparing for the conference we attended the following day.
The conference was held in the nearby town of Zalasowa. Each country presented acquired knowledge, developed projects, or personal experiences with participation. Mayors of surrounding towns and students from eight local schools attended this conference. After the presentations, we asked them for a short interview. After it concluded, we found that most students are not civically active in their local area. For some of them, it was the first time they had heard about participation opportunities. The students spent a pleasant morning, where they learned something new and were directly involved in interactive parts prepared for them.
I consider this meeting useful, both for the participating youth and for us. As members of organizations, we realized that we must find a way to motivate young people as much as possible towards civic engagement. Another identified problem is the lack of information among young people. Now we know that there is initiative from young people who want to be an active part of the community. There is also great interest in this issue from authorities who have expressed a desire to help them. Our future perspective is to be a bridge between these two sides and help them on a common path of cooperation on projects to improve society. We young people are the future, and yes – You(th) can Decide!
The You(th) decide! training thus supported the creation of a community that, we believe, will continue to work regularly on established goals contributing to improving the quality of life for young people in the Košice region.
You(th) decide is financially supported by the Visegrad Fund, and the activities are sponsored by the President of the Košice Self-Governing Region, the Mayor of Ryglice (Poland), and the Mayor of Břeclav (Czech Republic).
Activities are being developed in parallel in 4 Visegrad Group countries in cooperation with partners: