Save the seed, plant the tree. Save the youth, plant the future.
National
Montenegro
All municipalities of Montenegro: Andrijevica, Bar, Berane, Bijelo Polje, Budva, Cetinje, Danilovgrad, Gusinje ,Herceg-Novi, Kolašin, Kotor, Mojkovac, Nikšić, Petnjica, Plav, Plužine, Pljevlja ,Podgorica, Rožaje, Šavnik, Tivat, Tuzi, Ulcinj, Zeta, Žabljak.
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): High School Students Union of Montenegro Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Lana Last name of representative: Lješković Gender: Female Nationality: Montenegro Function: President of Board and legal representative Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: 36 Cetinjski put Town: Podgorica Postal code: 81000 Country: Montenegro Direct Tel:+38269666219 E-mail:lanaa.ljeskovic@gmail.com Website:http://unscg.me
After years of research and monitoring the work of young people, we have seen that young people face many problems related to tradition, culture, education, inclusion and ecology. The main problem is the insufficient amount of knowledge in the system of formal education on the mentioned topics, but also the exclusion of certain groups and ignoring the needs of young people. We have a mechanism to influence their problems. The main goal of our project is to raise awareness on the topic of ecology, culture and tradition and educate young people with equal chances and opportunities, as well as implementing education through informal education and interactive ways of learning. In order to achieve the goal of the project, we determined four main activities. The four main activities: Film, Art exhibition, Excursion/camping and General Assembly. They would be implemented quarterly so that young people are up-to-date throughout the year. The film would be created by young people, visiting the beauties of our wonderful country, putting messages that they consider important, with the assistance of mentors, the voice of young people would find expression. At the art exhibition scheduled for the middle of spring, among other things, a film will be presented, as well as numerous works of art created by young people on a given or free theme. We advocate that they express their opinion without any external influence. The trip would serve to learn about sustainability, natural resources, ecology, and it would be educational because ecology is still not a compulsory subject in secondary and elementary schools in our country. Depending on the weather and the wishes of the young people, it can be several one-day trips or camping. The general assembly serves to carry out an evaluation and find out the impressions of young people, but also to determine what young people want to do next and in what way to approach them even better, emphasis is on youth inclusion.
Inclusion
Ecology
Culture
Education
Tradition
Sustainability is key to any project. Our project is in accordance with the strategic documents that guarantee the continuation of the effect of the project results even after its implementation. Montenegro is a country of great ethnic tradition and culture. Its roots have existed for centuries and numerous things have happened in it. Young people enjoy the goods of our country, but not in the full sense, we want to inform them, take them out of their comfort zone and teach them to protect and love their country. Once a large group of young people participate in this project, the word will spread and this will be a project that will be renewed for years. It is sustainable and very practical, and we will be there to give our best. To be completely transparent, Montenegro does not have the best economic status, despite its tourism and outstanding geographical location. Poverty prevails and many children have never even seen the sea but they live in a country with wonderful beaches, they have not climbed our mountain peaks or touched the water from our lakes. This seemingly small acquaintance with nature is of great importance. The desire to return and preserve nature so that it welcomes them in the same way in the next visit will also be persistent. Learning about ecology, outside of school in an informal education system, nurturing tradition, culture and ethics, and with all that, equal opportunities and opportunities for participation, that are just some of the benefits that the implementation of this project brings.
We believe that the key goals of our project are cultural awareness, participation of young people in seminars and workshops, preservation of natural resources and the environment in general. Also, another benefit is that we will work on inclusion during the project, in addition to the environmental awareness of young people and the differences in society that we have to deal with and accept. In this way, we develop empathy in our society, a healthy relationship in the community in which we live, and we also work for cultural benefit, more precisely the preservation of all the mentioned aspects of life. We must also point out that this project offers, in addition to knowledge from various fields, cultural education, familiarization with the life and traditions of our people, and countless benefits that have a tremendous impact on the psychological life of young people. Those benefits are the inclusion of young people in our projects and plans, team work, more frequent participation of young people, environmental awareness, preservation of natural resources, the psychological way of life of young people such as the feeling of love for their homeland and their people, empathy that is not based on age. These are just some of the key goals of our project, because of them we believe that AROY would be an extremely important project first of all for our society, and then we believe that we would succeed in the development of the project outside of Montenegro as well.
The previous system of project work in Montenegro was based on the inclusion of young people only from the central region of the country and most often only from the capital - Podgorica. Equality must be nurtured and that's why this project includes young people from all parts of Montenegro, from north to south including all 25 municipalities. It will be insisted that there be at least one or more participant/s from each city, in accordance with the interest of young people. In the field of payment, all costs of transportation and the events themselves will be borne by the organization from its own budget, but also from the potentially won New European Bauhaus award which would help considerably considering that we are a non-profit, non-political and non-governmental organization. There will be equal information and an invitation to participate. We believe that prioritizing the central region is a disadvantage and in some way a degradation of the surrounding young people. Inclusion also includes rural areas, and it will not be affected by factors such as: financial status, race, religion, health impairment, etc., the project is ethically correct and will work on the inclusion and diversity of young people.
Our citizens certainly benefited from our project because they actively participated in the implementation of the project, which deals with the most important issues of human existence, such as the preservation of the environment, natural resources, and cultural heritage. On the other hand, our citizens, especially young people, were involved in the very creation of the AROY project. In this way, we had an exceptional impact on society because we enabled them to critically approach the most important local and later global problems and actively participate in the very implementation of this project, which is the fruit of our joint work. Also, our citizens would be involved in the project again, and this time they would enable even more of our citizens to come and provide even more content for them, such as workshops, seminars, exhibitions and the like. The influence of the inclusion of our citizens is extremely large, because in this way we influence not only the participation of young people in society, but the participation of collectives in society. In addition, we culturally and traditionally influence the acquisition of knowledge and raise awareness of topics such as education, culture, life of citizens of Montenegro, environmental protection and many other topics that are major problems of our society today.
One of the beautiful features of this project is that it is implemented by young people. Creativity and coming up with ideas and activities, implementation in accordance with regulations and laws, youth organization - all this is done by the High School Students Union of Montenegro. The President of the Board, the President of the Assembly, four members of the Board and three members of the Supervisory board are all young people who will help in the realization of this project. Politics are not involved, which is good so that no form of indoctrination is carried out on young people. An indirect participant in the implementation of this project is the Ministry of Education through secondary schools. All activities will include groups of high school students from Montenegrin high schools. One of the largest groups of young people included in this project are high school students, participants in the activities. Thanks to the good collegial and correct relations between non-governmental organizations in Montenegro, we can also expect the contribution of fellow organizations such as, for example: NGO Prima, Women's safe house, Center for monitoring and research - CeMI, Montenegrin women's lobby, Center for Democracy and Human Rights - CEDEM, Montenegrin LGBTIQ association Queer Montenegro, NGO Juventas, The Spektra Association as well as numerous others. Both in terms of promotion, contribution and participation in the project. Together with the young people and delegates, the people mentioned above will implement the project, they all live in Montenegro, they know our system, they are young people and therefore understand high school students and young people in general. They are all from different regions and will implement the project at the national level, including each municipality.
In our project, they would highlight some fields of knowledge that were extremely important for society, namely teamwork, communication skills, adaptability to various situations, good conflict management, quick resolution of problems, good organization and emotional intelligence. The representatives of these fields communicated with each other by exchanging knowledge and experiences, so they also passed on their knowledge to young people. While the added value of this project was the development of hard and soft skills of young people, as well as the participation of young people during this project. In addition, some future cooperation between organizations and the development of many partnerships for the purpose of improving the position of young people. We would also organize seminars, workshops, trainings and discussions with young people, which would additionally help us to influence the progress of the project itself. We believe that this kind of knowledge could not be acquired in schools where book learning is more favored, but that the only way to use the AROY project and interactive learning methods is to raise awareness of culture, tradition and the sense of belonging among young people. In addition, our project would not only take place during the time for which it is planned, but on the contrary, the youth in the focus of the project, and of course the older generations would always be able to improve their knowledge in the given areas.
Innovativeness is the complete inclusion of young people from Montenegro, rural and urban areas, without the influence of any financial and social characteristics. The money from the prize is invested directly in young people, because the vision of our organization is not money and profit (although it is needed for the realization of many things), but a Society in which young people are the pillar of development and every young person has the opportunity to realize their potential and aspirations. Innovation is also the promotion of modern trends in education, youth activism and co-management in those areas through education based on international cooperation. Focusing on topics of crucial importance such as diversity, ecology, tradition, culture but also education, Voice of the Youth... are often neglected and should be implied.
High School Students Union of Montenegro consists of 53 student parliaments in Montenegro, whose umbrella organization they are. This kind of approach and implementation of projects will be able to be continued through the school parliaments, which are one of the numerous informal groups. Taking into account the fact that the High School Students Union on Montenegro has cooperation with numerous Balkan and European partners, in the following years this project could also be implemented in the surrounding countries such as Serbia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Northern Macedonia, Kosovo... the first year the project would be based in Montenegro, but we would encourage colleagues from organizations to try to implement some of our values, methods and goals with our help, and we would be happy to share our work principle with them. Emphasizing the fact that we have listed the countries of the Western Balkans, which we have no doubt have rich beauty and tradition, the transition would not be large and the project would retain beautiful and true values, which is our ultimate goal. We selflessly offer our help, our project implementers can always be lecturers or give training to people who would hold this project in another country. We will always generously give advice on website, marketing or methods.
We have a direct approach with high school students, the project is informative and educational in itself, and it brings new and improves existing knowledge to high school students. Activities are developed methodologically through workshops, focus groups, excursions... The methodology of the AROY project is to raise the awareness of young people about some things that remain forever, such as tradition, culture, the community in which we live, in fact, the feeling of belonging. So with this project we can influence young people to use what they have like the older generations, but also to develop in them the right way of thinking about the fact that we have to start building the future that we, as young people, think that we need. All elements of our project will be transferred to other places and groups because the AROY project is not based exclusively on our community, on the contrary, it enables people from other areas to get to know us. That's why everyone will be able to watch a movie or attend an exhibition. Therefore, AROY enables a lot of things that other projects could not, and that is exactly the connection between people who want to get to know us better and experience the beauty of our country. Practical methology is based on panel discussion, workshops, assemblies, group visits, innovative youth activism and hearing all opinions. So for this project, there are no restrictions regarding certain communities, minority groups, areas, places...
We are partially solving humanity's biggest problem, which is the ozone layer and global warming. We solve it by training young people that prevention is better than cure, to take care of the nature of both our country and wherever they go. Pollution, recycling and conservation of natural resources are part of the topics we cover and talk about. We solve the problem of non-participation in activities due to a financial deficit by bearing the costs of participation as an organization, it is a small contribution that we make so that young people are not defensive towards youth activism, especially when talking about important topics. We solve the problems of degradation based on race, religion, finances, education, health with the complete inclusion of young people, not taking these factors into account because they are irrelevant, young people should be given equal opportunities. Starting from our local communities, across the whole country we shaped new generations to respect and protect what they have. One country at a time, that's how we have the whole world.
Some of our achievements so far have really changed the perceptions of numerous young people throughout Montenegro. Since 2015, when the High School Students Union of Montenegro was founded, a large number of activities have been carried out. The primary activities of our projects were: Action Days, Students Parliaments Competitions, Workshops "Let your voice be heard", open calls for new members of UNSCG, General Assemblies… We directly influenced young people, developed their critical thinking, media literacy, career-oriented them, we worked to ensure that young people get the best possible quality of life in our country, and that is not an easy task at all. We are the first organization in Montenegro that included absolutely every municipality and every school. All young people had the chance to give their opinion on any topic at our annual General Assemblies and we solved the problems of young people. Over time, we also recognized the problem of a knowledge deficit in the fields of culture, ecology and tradition, and now we are working on that as well with this project. The literal representation of our results are the young people today, our former delegates who have numerous skills acquired through informal education. We will continue with our quality work and create a better future for young people in Montenegro.
The AROY project contributes to the development of new competencies, especially in the context of European frameworks, because we enable all communities regardless of gender, age and origin to attend seminars, workshops, exhibitions, camps in such a way that they themselves can actively participate in them. What is important for the European framework is that we provide everything necessary for those who want to see the beauty and wealth of our country and visit it. We would also receive a large number of young people from different countries who would like to participate in the AROY project, and in addition work on their cultural upliftment and development of the skills they need. They would also show them how we protect the environment, take them on tours and develop European partnerships that were directed towards the most important issues of human existence and the environment.
