International Youth Day in Serbia

Importance of active Youth

On 12th August, a great celebration was organized at Ada Ciganlija - International Youth Fair, where more than 35 youth organizations had the opportunity to present their programme and aims. The guest of the opening ceremony was the Minister of Youth and Sport, Snežana Samardžić-Marković, after whose speech all organizations continued exchanging their experience until late afternoon hours.


By VALENTINA BOŠKOVIĆ
from Belgrade, SERBIA


In the world, 12th August is well known as International Youth Day. In Serbia, this has become a red letter day since last year, when the tradition of celebration was started. This year, Student Union of Serbia, along with partner organizations (Student Union of Belgrade, AEGEE-Beograd, under the auspices of Ministry of Youth and Sport and with the help of Microsoft Office in Belgrade) organized a several-days celebration of International Youth Day in order to show the importance of active youth in all sectors of the society.

As the introduction to International Youth Day, a video conference between the members of Student Union of Serbia (as well as other youth organizations) and the participants of World Youth Congress in Canada was organized. The discussion during the conference revolved around external cooperation of youth organizations, with the help of Microsoft equipment called 'Round Table'. In this way, we promoted the aims of National Youth Strategy - more active life of young people and their participation in the decision-making process, as well as successful cooperation with our friends from abroad. Participants of the conference were members of various youth organizations in Serbia and a special guest from the Ministry of Youth and Sport. They had the opportunity to exchange the experience with the members of World Youth Congress during one hour of the conference.

On 12th August, a great celebration was organized at Ada Ciganlija - International Youth Fair, where more than 35 youth organizations had the opportunity to present their programme and aims. The guest of the opening ceremony was the Minister of Youth and Sport, Snežana Samardžić-Marković, after whose speech all organizations continued exchanging their experience until late afternoon hours. This was a great chance for members of all organizations to get in touch with each other and to promote their activities to the public.

The last event which celebrated International Youth Day was Extreme Rolling Competition, which gathered around 40 participants from Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Croatia, Hungary, Spain, France and Serbia. The competitors were rolling in the groups of 5, having 6 minutes to show what they know and competing for the first three positions and the award 'Hero of the Day' and 'Best Trick'. Two home judges and a special guest from Germany Jojo Jacobi were evaluating their skills.

This year, International Youth Day in Serbia was celebrated in an interesting, innovative way. We hope to have more participants next year and we believe that we will wake up the sleepy youth of Serbia, as well as give bigger support to those who are already active in our society.


(Published: 10.09.2008.)