• 2014-11-06
• |  Belgrade

Democratic Political Forum: It Is Necessary To Treat Youth Problems Systematically

The need to engage youth more actively into democratic processes and revitalization of democracy in Serbia is highlighted as a big priority at the debate “Youth in the Society Overwhelmed by Problems”.

The need to engage youth more actively into democratic processes and revitalization of democracy in Serbia is highlighted as a big priority at the debate “Youth in the Society Overwhelmed by Problems” that was organized by Center for Democracy Foundation and Friedrich Ebert Foundation within the project Democratic Political Forum. 

“High unemployment rate among youth, crime and violence even among children is very noticeable, and it all reveals that families that are endangered do not dedicate enough time to youth and they are being undertaken by streets where aggression rules”, as stated by President of the MB of Center for Democracy Dragoljub Mićunović. 

“If we do not pay attention to youth, and yet tomorrow they will vote, I am not sure that the general direction of development, which dominates the world today, hedonistic and consumeristic, in a world which is getting poorer, will in the right manner include youth and develop democracy”, said Mićunović. 

Member of Parliament Nataša Vučković expressed her impressions from the World Democracy Forum and asked in which way youth may be actively included into decision-making processes. 

“Youth in the world are very apathetic and mechanisms for their engagement create distrust towards the system and political parties”, she assessed.

“One of the biggest problems is the lack of transparency in making decisions and youth react to that very negatively, by excluding themselves from social flows and forfeiting their engagement”, said Nataša Vučković. 

“There are four areas that arisen as the most important at the Forum: how can youth influence the awareness, how can they influence the decision making processes, how can they influence the institutions and policies. Those questions are also relevant today for us in Serbia” said Vučković.

Consultant Tanja Azanjac stated that after 2000, first measure of the new government was termination of the ministry in charge of youth. Ever since, we mobilized youth and took the opportunity to more actively engage them, which resulted in 2007 when we again gained Ministry of Youth and Sport where youth is very present in the budgets and policy concerning youth. 

“A lot of work has been done, infrastructure is developed, some objectives in how state should treat youth are defined, but the fact that we are still tackling youth issues erratically or occasionally”, said Tanja Azanjac. ​

Participants at the debate were: Nataša Vučković (Member of Parliament), Jovana Jovanović (Member of Parliament), Tanja Azanjac (Consultant), Dragoljub Mićunović (CDF), Dragan Stanojević (Faculty of Philosophy), Smiljka Tomanović (Faculty of Philosophy), Jelena Brašanac (Youth Committee for Education), Neda Živanović (Youth Committee for Education), Predrag Petrićević (Open Communication), Neven Cvetićanin (Institute of Social Sciences), Miroslav Ružica (Forum for International Relations), Zlatko Nikolić (Criminologist), Darko Radičanin (Youth Achievements in Serbia), Miloš Smiljanić (Student Parliament of Takovski Ustanak Gymnasium), Natalija Mićunović (CDF) and others. 

Center for Democracy Foundation