YOUNG LEADERS

FORUM OF YOUNG LEADERS

One day, sitting in our scouting office, we realised that there is a lot of youth organisations at Sopot. Most of them are working individually and don't even know about their own existence. We decided to organize a conference and invite all youth NGO's and local authorities.

Together with about 20 different NGO's, we discussed possibilities and analysed the needs of young people in our town. The conference "Forum of Young Leaders" was a successful kick-off of youth co-operation. We realised that there are a lot of things to do with youth in our city and we want to change it. By acting together, we are more powerful, especially as the local authorities are open for co-operation. All this creates a favourable "environment" for youth.

A Youth City Council is being organized. The statute, giving relatively substantial powers to the Youth Council is almost ready. We are waiting for "political" decisions to be taken now but we are positive that our opinions and ideas will be taken under consideration. We know that it is just a first step to create the local youth policy and to make Sopot a municipality of young people. We have made the good climate and field for future co-operation between youth and municipal authorities.

INTERCULTURAL LEARNING

On 19-21 October 2000 a Baltic Sea Youth Seminar on "Intercultural Learning" was held in Kiel. The primary goal of the conference was to study basic differences between the behavioural patterns of young people of different nationalities. Soon after the first workshops, the conference became a lesson of tolerance, a guide how one must battle his stereotypical impressions and prejudices! This had an immensely positive affect on participants and was a clear stimulus to going deeper into the problem. We had managed to identify our bias but we couldn't come up with the solutions. Soon, however even this had been tackled. I am sure that participants of the seminar had been filled with drive and vigour and will act against stereotypical thinking in the not only nearby future!