Regional Partnerships for Intercultural Exchange - Subotica - Mostar - Osijek

SUBOTICA, 12TH AUGUST 2011

On the 12th of August Subotica as well as the rest of the world celebrated International Youth Day. The event was held in the park of Ferenc Rajhl and it was the third time of marking this day in the city of Subotica.

This year’s slogan was “Volunteer!”. The year 2011 has been designated  as the “European Year of volunteering” by the European Union. The main message which this slogan was sending to the young people was encouragement to join non-governmental organizations for voluntary activities and through them contribute to the future development of their society.

The initiators and main organizers of Youth Day celebration this year were AIESEC Subotica, HERA association, Local Democracy Agency Subotica, Stav+plus association, Youth Forum of Vojvodina VIFO. Other participants were PhotoWalkers photo club, Zumba fitness, ECO-friends Subotica, Light Fire jugglers team.

All visitors of the event could take part in entertaining interactive activities prepared by the participants. For example, everybody visiting the LDA Subotica stand was welcome to take a chance and check their knowledge in a few quizzes and games about the European Union, European youth mobility programmes or just get more information about these things and the projects which Local Democracy Agency implements. ECO-friends Subotica prepared and lead environment friendly workshop on recycling of old batteries. Lots of god emotions and energy visitors got from Zumba fitness performance which included everybody willing to try this mix of fitness and dancing. A very eye-catching performance was prepared by jugglers with fire and a group of belly dancers. Those who were looking for some art space were pleased by PhotoWalkers who made a creative use of the space between the park trees for their photo exhibition.

Probably the most appealing and visited by every visitor of the event place was Global village. That was the place where representatives of different countries of the world presented their home countries. In Global village all the visitors as well as the participants themselves had an opportunity to meet people from Algeria, Lithuania, Turkey, Ukraine, Greece, Egypt, China, Poland and Russia. They could broaden their knowledge by getting first-hand information about these countries, try their national cuisine, get deeper insight into different cultures while having conversations with the representatives of those cultures. This project was initiated by AIESEC Subotica and most of the participants were interns at this organization. However one EVS volunteer from LDA Subotica also took part in this initiative.

The event was ended with the concert of a few local youth bands hereby showing the support for the active young people in a local society and providing them with the opportunity of self-promotion.

The aim of the whole celebration was to show the necessity and enhance the understanding of youth active participation in the community life for the better changes.

Prepared by: Gabriela Kustan, volunteer in LDA Subotica, (I am from Lithuania)

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