NEW YOUTH DELEGATES FROM SERBIA IN UN ARE HERE!

Since the beginning of 1980s, the United Nations pay attention to young people and topics significant for them. During 1995, on the 10 th anniversary of the International Year of Youth, UN adopted “World Programme of Action for Youth”. The program invites the governments to support the participation of young people at international forums, by including young representatives in state delegations at the General Assembly and other gatherings for young in the system of the United Nations in which young people participate. The “UN Youth Delegate Programme” is one of public channels for the participation of young people in the United Nations and it has already been established in 30 countries across the world. More precisely, that means that when it comes to the United Nations, young people do have a voice.

“That is exactly why Serbia is included in that project. The Serbian UN Youth Delegates is a part of the comprehensive attempts of United Nations Association of Serbia to support the participation of young people in the programmes of the United Nations and the affirmation of the significance of UN among young people in our country. Member states of the UN recognised that the creativity, energy and ideals of young people are vital for development of the country in which they live” Milorad Kondić from United Nations Association of Serbia (UNA Serbia) says.

OPENS participated in the selection of youth candidates of Serbia in the United Nations. “One of the main pillars that OPENS supports is the inclusion of young people in the processes of decision-making, both on local and on national, regional and even international level. The process and the Serbian UN Youth Delegates project itself provide the opportunity for young people from Serbia to participate within the delegate of the Republic of Serbia in significant events which are organised by the United Nations, at the conferences, summits, even at the General Assembly, where they will have the possibility to exchange experiences and knowledge which they have gained with the peers from the whole world, but also to participate in the creation of policies, strategies and documents at the international level” Vukašin Grozdanović, OPENS Coordinator explains.

Serbian UN Youth Delegates will also attend the General Assembly in October, where they will have the possibility to organise a meeting at the margins of the session with the topic European Youth Capitals, where they will mention the European Youth Capital in the speech in front of the United Nations. Participation at the UN Human Rights Council is planned in November, within “Forum on Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law” and ECOSOC Youth Forum will be organised in January next year, which is another opportunity to organise a panel on European Youth Capital Novi Sad 2019 and to present what we plan, what we have done and which results we have achieved until
now.

Tijana Čupić and Nikola Petrović are new Serbian UN Youth Delegates for the 2018/2019 mandate! During their mandate, the selected young people have the opportunity to participate in the meetings of UN, to learn about the work of this organisation, to improve youth policy in our country as well as to participate in making the decisions significant for young people.

NIKOLA PETROVIĆ
won the “Best Speaker” award at the 15 th Competition in Rhetoric, organised by the Ministry of Education, during his high-school days. In 2015, he graduated from the Law Faculty at the University of Belgrade, with the average grade 9.97/10. He has MA in International Economy acquired at the Facility of Economy of the University of Belgrade, with the average grade 10/10. In July this year, he graduated at Cambridge University, where he studied law at the Trinity Hall College. During the studies, as the active member of the student community, Nikola was selected for the representative in the University Student Parliament. He organised numerous student manifestations, from panel
discussions, debates, educational travel, to formal commemorations and official ceremonies attended by the highest state representatives. He attended numerous international conferences, summer schools, seminars, moot court competitions and UN Model. He is the founder of the “We Learn for Serbia” association, as the part of the global network “Teach for All”. After graduation, he held lectures in rhetoric at SAMS school of rhetoric at the Law Faculty and he started to work as an attorney trainee. He also became a pilot of Piper Tomahaws last year.

TIJANA ČUPIĆ
graduated from the Faculty of Philology of the University in Belgrade, at the Department of Iberian Studies, then she gained MA within the Erasmus Mundus program, Learning and Teaching Spanish in International Multilingual Contexts at Deusto University, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona University and Free University of Berlin. She is currently working at the position of a Project Manager. Tijana is the coordinator of the project program “International Summer School of Latin- American Studies”, organised by Association of Serbian Hispanics. This project is of an activist character, it combines formal and informal education and highlights the significance of summer
schools and new methods when teaching young people with the intention of expanding knowledge on most remote parts of the world and on finding new solutions and ideas for the Balkan region. She achieved a part of youth activism through the program “United Nations Academic Impact” being one of sixty young people who won the competition Many Languages One World in 2016 and she had the opportunity to exchange her ideas and to develop a project on the significance on the goal of sustainable development 15, sustainability of land  evelopment. She published different papers regarding the problem of drug industry in Latin America.