BELGRADE – Minister of Youth and Sports of Serbia Mr Vanja Udovičić together with State Secretary Mr Predrag Peruničić visited on Thursday activities on one of the eleven projects from Serbia that RYCO supported through its first Call for Proposals. The project “Building Bridges for Balkans” is being implemented by the Hemijsko-Prehrambena Tehnološka Škola from Belgrade in partnership with the Economic and Law High School “Vasil Antevski-Dren” from Skopje and high school “28 June” from Sarajevo.
After successfully organized exchanges in Sarajevo in October and Skopje in November, the students and professors of the three high schools gathered in Belgrade for the third time to continue building friendships and cooperation through various workshops dealing with the topics of intolerance, hate speech, discrimination but also to visit a number of cultural and historical sights and talk about the conflicts that occurred in this region in the past decades.
During the meeting with project participants from Serbia, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mr Udovičić expressed full support to the project and congratulated on their success in working together.
“I am happy to meet all of you, and from today I am even more proud that the Ministry of Youth and Sports is actively contributing and supporting the work of the Regional Youth Cooperation Office. There is no better and more effective environment for developing cooperation and friendly relations than the one you create through your activities across the region – and I look forward to learning everything you will achieve through socializing and working during your stay in Belgrade. Through this and similar projects, we build bridges in our region for more prosperous and peaceful future of ourselves and the future generations. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you are contributing to make our region the most beautiful place for growing up, socializing and living in the world – and send my greetings to all the other young people from neighboring countries who build our common future with similar projects”.
RYCO Local Branch Officer in Serbia Ms Marija Bulat underlined that these types of projects should be regular activities in all the schools and that high school students from the region should get to know each other better in order to understand differences but also similarities that exist among their peers in the Western Balkans. Encounters and open discussions are needed more than ever for ensuring inclusive and tolerant societies and creating a joint future for the young people in the region. She invited these schools to spread the word about RYCO to their colleagues and invite them to apply for the second Open Call that was launched recently.
More info on the new Open Call for Project Proposals is available here.
