NEW ROUND OF PARTICIPATIVE DEMOCRACY

The three-day training for facilitators was organised at the Eđšeg Culture Station, and it gathered the people who are motivated to work with young people and to listen to their needs. The training was attended by the facilitators who would lead the programmes of participative budgeting within the “Join, Find the Solution” programme in the high-schools of Novi Sad.

Participative budgeting is the mechanism of participative democracy which enables the citizens to directly influence the decision-making about the use of the budget funds, while the facilitators are there to bring them the entire process closer. European Youth Capital Novi Sad decided last year to implement this method in a micro community – such as high-school.

“It is important that the person who works with young people is educated. They are not familiar with the concepts like “participative budgeting” and it might seem repellent, but all of that is actually a nice and interesting process. It is also important that the person who is a facilitator is motivated to work with young people and support their decisions, and they will get all skills necessary for that through this education”, Aleksandra Ilijin, OPENS Programme Coordinator says.

The training is not only focused on youth workers, but people of other profiles who are interested in working with young people. In order to successfully implement the process, it is necessary that people who lead it have necessary knowledge about participative democracy and its mechanisms, but also the skills for working with different groups of people.

For the second year in a row, OPENS is implementing the training for facilitators and this year, the cooperation has been established with Foundation 2021.

“The cooperation with OPENS is very important since that both our projects are of national significance and that they are implemented in Novi Sad. It is necessary to agree with the field which is in our focus, which are young people and culture. Also, in both capitals, taking into account that they are European, the process of democratization is a key value which is supported and cherished. Last year, OPENS implemented this programme of participative budgeting, thus their experience is very important to us. We believe that, with the previous experience and united efforts, we will have even better results this time and include more young people”, Milica Rašković, Manager for the Department for Programme Development before Foundation 2021 says.

In the following period, another training will be organized, which will deal with additional set of skills and where the focus will be on the communication with young people.