WB youth together for a shared future

The young people from WB6 inherited from the past a hostile discourse for the neighbors, which hinder their European aspirations. It is important to offer them opportunities for a mutual and better understanding of the past to break their clichés. The young participants will experience cultural exchange during one online week. They will work in teams and each country is going to be represented by sites of memory, testimonies from survivors, interviews with young generation, meetings with experts in the fields of media, democracy, religion, employment etc., Representatives from different CSOs & media would provide them a wider overview of not only the past but also current political and social developments and the challenges for the future in the region. The project supported by the Regional Youth Competition Office (RYCO) intends to raise awareness on the consequences of different conflicts or totalitarian regimes in the region in the past, the learning we have taken from them and their threats in present times.

11–14 September 2020: Training Participants

The project started with a cycle of trainings for 24 participants from WB6. The purpose of the training was getting to know the participants better with the focus of the project, as well as enabling them with skills on topics that increase the quality of the contents such as: interviewing, online presentation, research, teamwork etc.

19–23 October 2020: Online Cultural Exchange Week

19 October – The first day of the event was the screening of the documentary produced by IDMC "Children of Dictatorship", which has on focus the fate of four people who spent their childhood in prisons and internment camps of the dictatorship. This documentary stimulated feedback and a very interesting discussion with young people, experts and other guests.

20 October – Young people from Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina presented all the materials and their reflections on the period studied. Albanian introduced the communist regime, important personalities that fought against and the crimes of dictatorship. The team from Bosnia and Herzegovina showed inspiring people and aspects from different periods the country had been through.

21 October – On the third day, the young representatives of Kosovo and Montenegro presented their creative and reflective work on their past, present and future. They discussed about the conflicts in '90-s and Yugoslav regime. Each one shared their point of view and opened debates that broke the stereotypes of young participants.

22 October – On the fourth day of the project, young people from Serbia and the Republic of North Macedonia exchanged materials with the other young participants that aroused a lot of interest and discussion. It was interesting to see both young people vision was the same, testifying the similarities between countries.

23 October – In this concluding activity was presented the documentary produced by IDMC "Memory of a Country that Forgot to Forget". Later a discussion panel with experts and young participants, highlighted all the problems that young people have in their relationship with the historical past.

25 November 2020: Closing Conference

In the difficult conditions of the global pandemic, a hybrid conference was held to conclude the project. Some young people from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Kosovo came physically in Tirana while the rest joined online. All participants expressed their impressions on the experience in the cultural and historical service and the fact that this project helped them discover new things not only for the Western Balkans region but also for their country. At the end of the project all the collected materials were processed in a magazine dedicated to the totalitarian regimes that have influenced the region and the views of young people about them.