Establishing new partnerships in Slovenia

From 15 until 20 January 2007, the Youth Centre of Dravinja Valley, in Slovenske Konjice in the east of Slovenia received 42 participants from 27 different organisations. The seminar “Come together” was dedicated to create contacts between these organisations. At the end of the week nine project ideas were presented.

“Very useful, interesting and fun. Certainly a big help for finding partners for projects”, concludes one of the participants at the end of the week.

The aim of “Come together” was to create contacts between different organisations that work with young people. It was a large and heterogeneous group, so all the tools have been used to create a link between all of them. On the first day games were played in order to get to know each other and the organisations better.

Visiting different organisations

On the second day the participants visited one Multimedia Centre in Krško, one Youth Centre in Brežice and one Youth Hostel. This youth hostel has the particularity to have been built in an old political jail in the centre of Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia.

“The best part for me was that we had the chance to see different Slovenian organisations, instead of sitting and staying in the same place”, explains one of the participants in the final evaluation.

During the last two days, the participants discussed possible future projects. Nine of them were thoroughly prepared and presented to the local press.

Most of the projects aim to involve the youngsters more in their society. One of the projects proposed to establish an international institute for active citizenship. Another had the idea to organise a training seminar to exchange best practices in local youth participation.

Mélanie Thomas, Youth Centre of Dravinja Valley, Slovenia