More than 200 balloons flew up in the sky, each carrying a message for peace, on the #YEIforPeaceDay event, organized on September 21st by the USAID Youth Ethnic Integration Project and marking the International Peace Day. The event also served as an interactive and engaging pre-promotion of the project and its upcoming activities, through specific joint student activities.
The voices and laughs of 120 students from different ages, schools, ethnicities and cities could be heard at the event, as they were jointly debating their views on multiculturalism and youth’s role in society, playing fun sports games and planting trees in the school yard of SS Gjorgji Dimitrov from Skopje. This gave teachers and visitors an opportunity to witness some of the activities whose implementation the project will be supporting in all primary and secondary schools in Macedonia in the upcoming 5 years.
“Here, in my heart, I can feel that we are all the same“, stated one of the students who was planting trees together with his new friends from other participating schools. Another student, after discussing different views on multicultural society with other students, concluded: “I would like to know about the other cultures in Macedonia”. And activities where the students can learn more about each other and discover all the things that unite them is exactly what the project will be supporting.
However, creating more opportunities for interethnic cohesion among youth in the educational system is only one of the areas in which the project will be supporting the schools in the future. The Youth Ethnic Integration Project will also provide support in creating conditions for cultivation of democratic and civic values and behaviors of youth, which are essential for building a strong, democratic society.
This activity is part of the Youth Ethnic Integration Project, funded by the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
This article is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of MCEC and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.
