CID

On Februrary 21^st, CID hosted the Public debate that discusses the profile, problems and priorities of young people in Kumanovo. This debate is part of the “Youth Reoublic” events, organized by the Initiative for Defence of Youth Participation, a coalition of 49 youth organisations in Macedonia.

The debate opened up issues and questions important for young people in Kumanovo, and gathered 80 participants.  The guest speakers shared information about statistics, youth policy and raised the matters with youth work reality.

“Kumanovo has several policy documents, like Local strategy on youth, but there is a lack of institutional support and lack of interests from NGO to implement it” emphasized the representative of the Municipality of Kumanovo.

“The youth is not only the future! The authorities should not wait for us to be old to involve us. There is a need to invest in the local youth service and raise the awareness of young people to take part in the decision making in all possible levels” shared representative of CID.

According to the state institute for statistics, in Kumanovo live around 25.106 young people (in the age of 15-29 years old) out of which 24.9% are unemployed. The discussion put emphases on the fact that the young people are becoming more and more apathetic and less motivated to take part in civil society activities. This goes in line with the fact that 62.8% of young people never took part in solving a local problem, and almost half of them don’t feel responsibility to improve the society in which they live. This is another indicator about the lack of active citizenship among young people in Kumanovo. Moreover two thirds of young people don’t trust local authorities in taking care of youth issues.  It is important that this event motivated young people in Kumanovo, to share their concerns and problems, much of it focused on the local reality and the inter-ethnic problems, visible in each segment of society.