Public discussion – “Volunteering at Festivals vs. Volunteering in the Community”
Green Entrepreneurship and Local Culture: Youth Workers on the Move

The “Local Volunteer Service Bitola”

The Local Volunteer Service project stimulates local democracy by renewing and nurturing solidarity and volunteering among young people with the aim of their greater involvement in the community. Partners in the project are the Youth Cultural Center - Bitola (MKC-Bitola) and SFERA International, already established civil organizations from Bitola that work with young people and actively participate in the creation of youth policies at the national and local level. The target group in the project are young men/boys and women/girls aged 15-29 from Bitola. Due to the specificity of volunteering at three levels: personal development, solving specific problems, and development of society, the project will contribute to increasing civic activism among these young people through their active involvement in the process of designing and implementing local volunteer actions. For this project, 2 workshops and 2 training courses were held for strengthening capacities for volunteer management. Also, for this project 2 workshops and 2 training courses were held for strengthening capacities for visibility and promotion. As a result, 5 local problems were identified and 5 actions were taken to improve living conditions in Bitola. The end result is to create a Local Volunteer Service with 200 young people from Bitola. The "Local Volunteer Service Bitola" project is implemented within the framework of the Regional Program for Local Democracy in the Western Balkans 2 - ReLOaD2, which is financed by the European Union (EU) and implemented by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).