PODGORICA – RYCO Local Branch Office in Montenegro in cooperation with the Ministry of Education of Montenegro and with the support of the OSCE Mission to Montenegro organized a four-day Capacity Building Training for representatives of secondary schools from Montenegro on 26 – 29 September in Podgorica. The Capacity Building training gathered 20 participants representing approximately 30 percent of all secondary schools in Montenegro. The training focused on strengthening capacities of potential RYCO beneficiaries in terms of developing project proposals, and the implementation of intercultural youth exchange programs.
Welcoming the participants, Head of the RYCO Local Branch Office in Montenegro Mr Edin Koljenović expressed his gratitude for the participants showing interest to take part in such training. By underlining the organization’s mission, he stressed the significance of the cooperation between RYCO and key actors such as the OSCE Mission to Montenegro and the Ministry of Sports and Youth of Montenegro. He particularly highlighted the importance of recently established cooperation with the Ministry of Education of Montenegro formalized with the Memorandum of Understanding last month. Mr Koljenović expressed his hopes that this will mark a new approach in the work of RYCO in Montenegro and will serve as a basis for new activities in the upcoming period.
Calling upon the results achieved by RYCO in the second year of its operations, General Director for Youth in the Ministry of Sports of Montenegro and Governmental Representative of Montenegro in the RYCO Governing Board Mr Nenad Koprivica reaffirmed the support of the Ministry of Sports and Youth to RYCO and its overall mission, and pledged to continue supporting such or similar projects in the future.
General Director for Secondary, Vocational and Adult Education Mr Veljko Tomić also welcomed the participants and underlined the importance of the cooperation established between the Ministry of Education and RYCO as an organization being recognized as a prominent regional initiative aiming at building sustainable peace in the Western Balkans.
The participants were also addressed by Representative of the OSCE Mission to Montenegro Ms Ivana Vujović who encouraged them to keep working on developing ways and ideas to connect young people within the schools and municipalities across Montenegro as well as within the Western Balkans.
The training aimed to provide participants skills for project writing, but also the development of projects that deal with RYCO priorities – intercultural learning, dealing with the past, youth participation and social inclusion. The training’s overall objective was to ensure a better quality of the future project proposals for RYCO’s open calls, but also of other foundations operating in the region.
