On May 12, 2022, the students from Aerodrom organized a youth action, supported by the Municipality of Aerodrom and the USAID Youth Ethnic Integration Project in cooperation with the Youth Educational Forum. The students from the primary schools “Goce Delchev”, “Blaze Koneski” and “Gjorgjija Pulevski” gathered on the sports playground in Dolno Lisice and together participated in several activities.
Some of them played basketball on the renovated playground, while others planted trees in the park and rode bicycles. This way, the students contributed to the protection of the environment and raised awareness of the need for greater physical activity.
“We are very happy to be here today and that we as young people managed to contribute something to society. We hung out together, gave our opinions, worked and contributed to make this playground more beautiful”, said the students.
During the action, they were joined by Dawn Carmin, USAID’s General Development Office Director in North Macedonia, who spoke with young people about what they had learned during the planning and implementation of the action and pointed out the importance of encouraging youth activism for positive change in the community.
“We are very happy to work with municipalities, schools, communities and most importantly, with young people to implement such initiatives that come from young people and which create wonderful spaces and opportunities. It was a very inspiring day and it was great to see all the students together celebrating their successes with representatives from the schools, the municipality and the whole community”, says Dawn.
She also met with the Mayor of the Municipality of Aerodrom, Timcho Mucunski, and representatives of the municipality and the schools with whom she discussed how they will continue to support the young people and their initiatives.
The action is a result of online workshops in which students participated in the past period and identified the challenges and possible solutions to improve the situation in their municipality. Through online advocacy meetings, they also cooperated with the local authorities in front of which they presented their ideas and from which they obtained the necessary support. Thus, the students managed to realize their ideas, emphasizing the importance of youth activism.
Youth actions will be organized in several municipalities across the country in the next period, as well.
This activity is part of the Youth Ethnic Integration Project, supported by 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 the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) or the United States Government.
