IDC at the Youth Empowerment Seminar
In Dilijan, Armenia, from October 8th until the 16th of this year, in cooperation with two organizations – Bratniak from Krakow, Poland, and the Youth Cooperation Center of Dilijan, Armenia, a seminar entitled Youth Empowerment for Change was organized. The seminar was financed by the Polish national agency Erasmus + Program, with 24 young boys and girls from countries across Europe (Albania, Czech Republic, Italy, Ukraine, Serbia, Belarus, Germany, Lithuania, Spain, Armenia, Georgia and Poland). IDC Serbia was represented by two representatives, volunteers: Isidora Banović Belić and Marija Božić.
The purpose of the seminar was to familiarize oneself with the significance of the participation of young people in the creation of social change, as well as to familiarize oneself with the mechanisms of this change. Participants were first given a theoretical framework, and then the opportunity to, optionally, illustrate what they learned through a simulation of problem solving. A special focus of the seminar was the participants’ individual empowerment, as each individual is the root and trigger of change we want to see in society. The idea of the seminar was the idea that young people can participate to a great extent and be the drivers of social change.
Over the course of seven days, participants have mastered some of the basic tools in problem detection and their systematic resolution, as well as the mechanisms for involving and animating their peers in starting the aforementioned, as well as the most effective ways of removing the obstacles that we face on this path.
The global conclusion is that young people across the European continent have the same or similar problems – difficult access to the labor market, insufficient participation in the creation of country policies, low quality and limitations in the possibility of self-development, economic difficulties, uncertainty about the future and the general feeling of overall inability to contribute to any change, and situation overturn. This seminar in Dilijan had the goal of overturn an entrenched way of thinking and show young people that they can be the bearers of change.
