Webinar “Youth and Me” organised by the European Rural Community Alliance with the main topic: participation of young people from rural areas in public policy-making.

The webinar was organized by the European Rural Community Alliance (https://ruralcommunities.eu/ ), presenting experiences from various European countries.

The event was attended by 30 participants from various European countries.

Aimee Spence was one of the organizers of the successful Scottish Rural and Islands Youth Parliament 2023.

Simone Dell ‘Armi and Kristin Langer present the story of Generation Europe -The Academy, a network of young people and youth work organizations in 14 European countries.

Philip Löf will speak about the impact on youth involvement on behalf of the Office of the Future Generations Commissioner Wales, including a Future Generations Leadership Academy.

Following this, there was interactive session to share experiences with experts Maarten Koreman (PhD about youth involvement in rural areas) and Matías Rubio (president of ‘La Bardal’ and member of the ‘Advisory Council on Youth’ of the Council of Europe).

Project team manager Prof. Dr. Mirjana Radovanović attended the event and in the introductory part introduced the participants to the main objectives of the project and the results that show the views of young people from rural areas of the Republic of Serbia.

The main conclusion of the event is that there are numerous challenges when it comes to involving young people from rural areas in policy and decision-making at all levels (the village where they live, the municipality, the district, the state and beyond). The reasons for this are very similar to the reasons that emerged from the implementation of the project in the Republic of Serbia: leaving rural areas in search of better employment conditions, the quality of life in rural areas and the often insufficient engagement of decision-makers in greater youth inclusion.

Prof. Dr. Mirjana Radovanović initiated a discussion on the reasons why young people leave rural areas, and the project showed that one of the important reasons is the fact that young people most often do not own the property or part of the property on which they live and that they are therefore often not involved in decision-making in their household and beyond. The issue of tradition was raised and represents a complex problem for the future, which was agreed upon by other participants in the event.