Taking place at the Youth Center FORTES from Ramnicu Sarat on 5^th of May, the activities called “Students activity and structured dialogue with local authorities” brought together, in a partnership, the County Council of Students -Buzau and the association ATCE –Speranta  Ramniceana and it was based on youth policy.

The activity is part of the project “Tomorrow starts today”, a project of participatory democracy  of the association RJOS “Apvalus stalas” in Lithuania, ATCE-SR and the youth council of Medias.

We started the day by getting to know each other better with small and fun games. After that, we were told the topic of the activity: centers of interest for youth-what are the problems and what can we do to overcome them. Once we knew what we were supposed to do, we had a debate to pinpoint what youngsters want and need and every one of us wrote his or hers opinions and suggestions about them. The domains were as it follows: Education-Knowledge-Art, Sports(physical education)- Health, Relaxation-Entertainment-Travel, Volunteering-Socializing-Training, Economy-Jobs-Business. After some brainstorming and a little break, we came up with ideas like: extracurricular courses about different subjects(e.g. local history,)  and workshops,  places where youngsters can practice sports(e.g. skateboarding  ramps, tennis courts, etc), training courses or part time jobs where we can gain experience for future references, volunteering to clean certain areas from out town, advertising volunteering, trips to different parts of our country etc.

At the end of the first activity and during the second one, “Structured dialogue with local authorities”, we had the honor of having as our guests the vice-mayor Sorin Carjan and  Mr. counselor Viorel Horja. We presented them our more realistic problems and the solutions we came up for them. Then, the vice-mayor told us his motto and gave us some advices: “ Change a life and you will change the world!”, ”Don’t just speak-act!”, “Everything starts with you!”, “Come up with a good idea and everything is possible!”.

And he is absolutely right:  we can’t wait for others to make the first step, we have to be brave and do it for us, for our future, because nothing will be given to us on a silver plate.

We will continue working for a change and we hope that more and more youngsters will join us.

Veronica Maria Ceausu