We spoke with the Director of the Franz Vranitzky Chair for European Studies at the University of Vienna Rainer Gries who is leading a team of researchers conducting a study on young people in the Western Balkans and their participation or non-participation in regional youth exchange programmes. This interview focused on the history, politics and
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WESTERN BALKANS – RYCO and UNICEF, supported by the UN Peacebuilding Fund, are implementing the second part of a teachers training on “Intercultural Dialogue, Peacebuilding, Constructive Remembrance and Reconciliation: A Toolkit for Teachers in the Western Balkans”, gathering 22 teachers from the region. Due to restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the five-day training is
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WESTERN BALKANS – Today marks the Human Rights Day, a day which is observed annually on 10 December to reaffirm the importance of human rights in our societies. This day commemorates the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 which became an important milestone in the
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TIRANA – December 8 marked the National Youth Day in Albania. Thirty years ago thousands of Albanian students took the streets to overthrow one of the toughest communist regimes in Southeast Europe. Since then, this day serves as a symbol of youth activism – a clear sign that youth can move mountains and by acting
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Today marks the day of the first RYCO Governing Board meeting, which took place in Tirana, Albania, on 8 December 2016. Our Governing Board is the highest decision-making body of RYCO and consists of twelve government and civil society representatives which share equal responsibility and decision-making power. The twelve representatives from the six RYCO Contracting
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WESTERN BALKANS – Celebrated on 5 December every year, the International Volunteer Day raises awareness on the role volunteer’s play in responding to challenges the world is facing. Development of societies in which helping others is a core value is significantly important in crises such as the current one caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore,
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“Some years ago we only dreamt about it. Now, it has actually come true.” This is what a representative of a youth organisation from the Western Balkans told me in Paris on 4 July 2016. That was the day when the six governments signed the common agreement creating RYCO. For years, different youth organisations in
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WESTERN BALKANS – The Regional Youth Cooperation Office (RYCO), in cooperation with the University of Vienna, the Sigmund Freud University Vienna and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH ORF Promotion of EU-Integration on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), publishes the publication A Better Region Starts with
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WESTERN BALKANS – The International Day for Tolerance is observed annually on 16 November. It was first proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1996, as a reminder of the importance of human rights and freedoms in the diverse communities we live in. RYCO’s efforts to shape the present and build a better future
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WESTERN BALKANS – After they successfully completed the Training of Trainers, and to utilize their newly gained skills and knowledge, expand the ypeer network among their groups and promote best innovative ideas of peacebuilding, the Western Balkan youth are organizing local workshops in Albania. The workshops are organized with the support of RYCO and UNFPA
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