European Youth Week in Varna
June 20, 2007
In the period 4-11 June Municipality of Varna organized Youth Week in the frame of the European Youth Week. YSPDB and EBCO representative in European Youth Forum (EYF) Veselin Iliev was invited by the organizers to take part in a discussion called “Youth policy in Europe”. He was asked to present the European Youth Forum and its priorities.
About 150 youth nongovernmental NGOs took part in the meeting. In its first part, the new “YOUTH IN ACTION” programme was presented. Then the presentation of European Youth Forum was organized.
In general, most of the organizations are well informed about the forum. They didn’t ask many questions about its work. The main question was about the membership criteria and why Bulgaria is not represented at the forum. It was explained that the only way for Bulgaria to be represented is to have stable, independent National Youth Council that represents the youth NGOs and the young people interests. Than the discussion continued with questions why there is not National Youth Council in Bulgaria. Some of the opinions were:
- the political parties and their youth clubs would like to have strong impact on the youth organization;
- most of the NGOs in Bulgaria do not really represent young people, but provide services for them;
- most of the NGOs do not want to cooperate with other similar NGOs;
- there are many NGOs, which only aim is to provide votes for the elections;
- many NGOs are manipulated by political NGOs or other structures, that make them stay far away from the young people interests.
After the discussion, some of the recommendations given by the report on the study visit to Bulgaria in 2005 were presented. One of the main problems of the youth NGO sector is the lack of motivation for cooperation between the different actors. When youth organizations find the way to have a dialogue and are able to discus together the problems in the sector, they will be able to create a natural way to establish national youth organization that will represent the young people in the country. There aren’t any cases when youth NGOs stand together and react on any situations in the society. Most of the NGOs try to teach the youngsters how to be active citizens and at the same time they are those who show no reaction on the new Youth Law proposed by the government this year; they did not even react when the Youth Programme was in danger few years ago. Most of the NGOs do not think about the youth non-governmental sector as one united system. Youth organizations have to learn how act as the voice of the young people in Bulgaria. Then they will be much more effective and welcome to the European Youth Forum.
For more information, please contact: Vesselin ILIEV
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