Municipality of Blace

Youth Office of the Blace Municipality

Municipality of Blace has recognised systemic care about the young as one of its priorities, and has therefore initiated the process for establishment of the Youth Office with the support of the Ministry of Youth and Sports. This initiative resulted in establishment of the Youth Office of the Blace Municipality in April 2008, which was, together with the neighbouring municipality of Kursumlija, included into the framework of the Civic Initiatives' "Youth Groups and Youth Offices Capacity Building" programme. Signing the Memorandum on Cooperation with Civic Initiatives, municipality of Blace has undertaken to provide working premises for the Youth Office functioning on permanent basis, employ one person in capacity of the Office Coordinator, as well as to provide financial resources for operation of the Office.

Since May 2008, premises of the Youth Office are located at the Culture Center in Blace.

The Youth Office is a sustainable youth service, link between the State, local community and the young, acting as an independent body within the local administration, dealing exclusively with the youth-related issues.

For the time being, the Office represents the only body in the Blace municipality taking care of the young, therefore strengthening of institutional framework for its operation is still considered a priority.

Insofar, activities of the Office were oriented towards strengthening of its own capacities and positioning of the Office in the city, through various activities.

First action undertaken by the Youth Office was a survey on position and needs of the youth in Blace (May 2008). According to the survey results, most common problems of the young in Blace are the following:

• unemployment ( 73.97% of young respondents is unemployed)
• lack of cultural events
• inability to acquire additional informal forms of education
• lack of sports activities

Besides the survey, the Office has undertaken additional activities such as:

• Vidovdanski concert (June 28th, 2008) with participation of the local band "Alter Ego"
• Basketball tournament " 3 on 3" (from August 21-28th, 2008.),
• Table tennis tournament (from August 12-20th, 2008.), which marked the International Day

The Youth Office has also taken part in organisation of traditional tourist- economic event "Plum Days- My Plum" (August 5-6th, 2008.) in Blace, as well as International Handball TV Tournament (August 24-27th, 2008.).

Since its establishment, the Youth Office, in cooperation with Civic Initiatives and Initiatives from Prokuplje, has delivered large number of seminars, meetings, consultations in Blace, Prijepolje and Belgrade, aimed at the Office capacity building.

Planned activites to be carried out by the Office in the coming period are the following:

• Establishment of the Youth Council based on the Blace Municipality Statute;
• Development of the Local Youth Action Plan in the Blace municipality;
• Development and inclusion of the strategic document "Plan for the Blace Youth Office Capacity Buidling- development of institutional framework and youth clubs" into the Assembly procedure.