Youth Engagement Forum in Mykolaiv, Ukraine

Global Youth Service Day FLEX stories are not over! There is still plenty of inspirational reports and pictures, which we hope will be an additional motivation for your community service activity! :)

By the way, for 1 and half months, our blog has reached the point of 1000 pageviews! We are very thankful to everyone who is interested in GYSD and FLEX partnership and keeps in touch with our entries! THANK YOU! :)

Our next story is about Youth Engagement Forum that took place in Mykolaiv, Ukraine.

On April 27 the event took place in Petro Mohyla Black Sea State University. It was organized by FLEX alumni Dmytro Say and Oleksandra Palagniuk for students living in rural areas of the Mykolaiv region. Representatives of 15 village schools attended the event - 45 participants (students and their teachers), 15 members of nongovernmental organizations and 10 guests (representatives of state authorities, journalists, representative of the Universtiy, etc.) attended the event. The goal of the Forum was to empower and motivate youth to be involved in community projects and be active members of their communities. Almost all work was performed in groups excluding opening and closing ceremonies.At the beginning of the Forum the attendee in groups presented their villages and school accomplishments in various spheres of life, including social, educational and ecological.

After that the participants discussed with NGO leaders the problems that they are faced with every day at the community. The second part of the Forum began with presentation of regional youth NGOs that showed their successful examples of solving youth problems.

Later, with the help of NGO leaders, the participants developed 14 action plans which were presented to the guests and all attendees. They should be carried out by participants in their communities by the end of the year of 2013.

There will also be an additional Youth Engagement Forum organized on the May 16 for 60 participants (students and teachers) from northern parts of the Mykolaiv region who could not attend the event due to the remoteness of their places from the regional center city Mykolaiv.

We hope that such educational and informational Yoiuh Forums will take place more often and develop the ideas of community service successfully in the future! Thank you Dmytro and Oleksandra for your big and impressive work!