In the next seven days, the House of Culture “Biljana Belichanec” in Kisela Voda, Skopje will come to life in the true sense of the word and will look like what it should grow into – Youth Center.
In the period from 6 to 13 May this year, Volunteers Centrе Skopje in cooperation with the Municipality of Kisela Voda will host the seminar for the project: “Neighborhood of youth centers in Europe”. It is a project from the “Erasmus +” program of the European Commission through the Belgian National Agency, which will be attended by thirty youth workers and representatives of municipalities from eight European countries: Macedonia, Germany, Belgium, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Within this project, we will organize three major events that will be open to all willing to participate.
We start on May 9 (Monday) when we will organize an exhibition on the occasion of Europe Day. Through this art exhibition, VCS provides an opportunity for young artists to exhibit their work in the field of digital art on the topic of “Youth and volunteering in community”. Meanwhile, in front of the House of Culture there will be stands where the participants of the seminar will present their country, food and culture.
On Wednesday, May 11, we will host a panel discussion on the topic: “Institutional support as a key to youth development”, which will discuss the need to open Youth Centers, as well as respect for the youth law. The conference (11 – 15 pm) will be addressed by the mayors of the Municipality of Kisela Voda and the City of Skopje, the directors of Volunteers Centre Skopje, the Coalition for Youth Organizations SEGA, the National Agency for European Educational Programs and Mobility, as well as representatives of the EU Delegation to Macedonia, the Macedonian Parliament and the Union for Youth Work.
The third event (Thursday, May 12, at 5 pm) is a great opportunity for active involvement of the whole community in change through the concept “SOUP”. It is a model that was used a few years ago in Detroit, USA, and is now practiced in almost 200 cities around the world. Now Skopje will become part of this network.
Through a symbolic fee of 100 denars, we get a chance to meet, socialize, exchange opinions, ideas and suggestions on how to improve the community. At least two and at most four speakers (previously selected through the public call we announced last week) present their ideas through a four-minute presentation. After the completion, a vote follows and the one who gets the most votes is the winner and gets all the money from the tickets that will be of great help in the realization of the idea. During all this, the attendees receive soup, ie stew in our case, but more importantly: they get a sense of belonging to the community.
Our goal is to create a community of support, with people donating and voting on a project to be funded. The project financed in this way has already planted seeds in the community and gained interest from potential clients / users to be included in the project outcome. The community will gain awareness of the ideas of local entrepreneurs, and the entrepreneurs themselves will have the opportunity to test their idea, to see if there is a market for their proposal.
Did you find yourself in one of our events? We expect you!