Public Hearing on Local Action Plan for Youth

One of the organizations indirectly involved in designing the draft of Local Action plan for youth was LDA Nikšić. They were invited to gather its young volunteers to be part of focus groups organized for the purpose of a needs assessment of the youth by the local Youth Office.

Along with the invitation, LDA Nikšić contributed by pointing out other potential beneficiaries that should be part of focus groups, being present on the field in communities.

After the focus group, LDA Volunteers worked together to prepare for the public hearing on the draft of The Local Action plan for the Youth, getting to know in detail about public hearing as a participation tool and strategic legal framework of youth policies. They prepared comments and suggestions, and while some were accepted, most of them were rejected.

The focus was on a public debate, of a constructive nature, where representatives of the civil sector, high school students, and volunteer clubs gave their impression of the Draft, abstracting valuable suggestions, mostly regarding the concept of Volunteerism, emphasizing young, talented people, in order to prevent brain drain.

It was a good example of the cooperation among various community stakeholders. The experience built up the capacities of the youth to participate and showed local authorities good practice in engaging youth in decision-making processes.