Municipality Youth Council of Plovdiv – position on the new municipal youth Programme “Plovdiv for youngsters”
March 24, 2006
The Municipal Council of the town of Plovdiv adopted municipal Youth Programme “Plovdiv for youngsters”. The youth leaders from the Municipal Youth Council expressed their concern about the programme. According to them, the local youth Programme is neither democratic nor transparent.
“We would like to inform you, that Plovdiv, the second largest city in Bulgaria, established a pilot program for youth activities called “Plovdiv for youngsters”. The goal of this program is to help youth NGOs start small-scale initiatives in the town by distributing the necessary funds for implementation. At the same time the establishment of the program and its management structure is neither democratic nor transparent. The reasons for these problems are as follows:
- The program was established without any help from the NGO sector or society;
- The managing structure includes a group of people who lack the expertise in managing similar programs; most of the members are political figures.
- Despite the fact that this is a pilot program, the maximum amount of money spent on projects is 10% of its annual budget.
Such problems mandate the need to express our concern. For the political leaders of the Municipal Council of Plovdiv town, the idea of a true civil society and democracy is disregarded. This is contradicts the efforts of Bulgaria to emulate European values. We consider that this program should be a vehicle for political gains, but rather an organization to improve the lives of young people in Plovdiv."
Municipal Youth Council
Plovdiv
