7,500 young people from all over Europe met in Strasbourg on the 20th and 21st of May for the YO!Fest 2016, the political Youth festival organized by the European Youth Forum in the framework of the 2nd edition of the European Youth Event – EYE2016. In a wide scope of activities ranging from live concerts, artistic performances to workshops, conferences and debates they showed that if we work together, we can make a Change.
Association of Local Democracy Agencies ALDA was presented by its network members: ALDA Skopje, LDA Mostar and LDA Zavidovici who participated in this event as partners of European Youth Forum. One part of the rich program of the event was the workshop that ALDA and LDAs team organized for 50 participants of EYE event 2016. Topic of our workshop was “Boosting Local Democracy: Lessons learned from the Balkans”, and methodology we used was world café without café. The objective was to provide participants with the challenges related to youth participation in South Eastern Europe.
50 young participants from all over the Europe became familiar with the ALDA network and its objectives and goals, with special focus on the project “Balkan regional platform for youth participation and dialogue”. We took those youngsters to the” Journey to the Balkans” presenting them 4 challenges within the project faced – link to one specific city. The stories of 4 youngsters coming from different cities Vevcani (Macedonia), Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Knjazevas (Serbia) and Peja (Kosovo) were chosen as a study case to present youth participation and obstacles they are facing with in their local communities.
The workshop concluded with a discussion that drew together various ideas and interesting proposals from the participants, that can be used for a further development of the Balkan platform for youth participation and dialogue.