Donator: Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Serbia
Duration: December 2013 – February 2015
Partners: Belgrade centre for Human Rights, Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights (YUCOM), ApsArt Centre, Media centre Beta (MBC)
The project ‘Out of the Box’ provided young people from different parts of Serbia with an opportunity to connect and learn through friendship, joint projects, and exchanges of ideas and visions. The Offices for Youth, and their coordinators and assistants are an important and unique partner for the promotion of youth policy and youth living in Serbia. This project created the possibility for the existing programs to improve further, and to turn new ideas into actions. The main tool of this project was “Cultural package” through which young people got to know themselves and others better, to learn to enjoy each other’s differences, and to learn from each other. And to have fun!
The project encouraged cooperation between young people from mixed ethnic backgrounds. It had two segments: the preparation and development of cultural packages in the community and the organisation of regional exchanges, with the goal of mutual understanding and acquaintance.
We organised a two-day workshop for local youths. The aim of the workshop was that young people together with the trainers come up with materials for cultural package, topics that are close to them and important, that reflect their identity, how they perceive their environment and diversity, but also everything else that they think is important and that may be interesting to others.
The Culture package entailed a collage of notes, photographs, handcrafts, music, and performances presented in the form of video clips.
All Cultural packages were presented on social networks, and the young people competed through this virtual platform and thus invested energy and enthusiasm in others. Those who showed the greatest engagement and creativity during the promotion of cultural products collected were awarded a computer.
The most active young people had the opportunity to visit the other offices, explore their local environment, as well as other Youth Offices. Throughout the two-day visit they had the opportunity to present their previous work in the form of interactive “public lectures”.
Project ‘Out of the Box’ was an opportunity for young people to learn how to express themselves through a new format: theatre.
ApsArt, in collaboration with partners, developed a play based on the theme, conclusions and ideas of young people. In order to contribute to authentic content, partners organised a competition for the script. The competition was open to young people from all over Serbia. Performance, itself, was interactive as well as it was periodically published on YouTube, so that young people could participate in its creation through comments.
Project activities were promoted through national and local media, promotional materials, and social networks. A Facebook application was created as well.
News
Workshops for youth in 12 cities in Serbia are completed. Workshops took place in: Obrenovac, Savski venac, Trgovište, Bosilegrad, Bački Petrovac, Vranje, Požega, Priboj, Prijepolje, Raška, Temerin i Bujanovac. The aim of the workshops was to encourage young people to think about the customs, habits, places and everyday events in their community and to, together with others from the local community take action that will collectively create their cultural packages. Culture package is a living thing that is made through participation of the community in order to show the positive values of community through theatre, performance, photography, and film.
This project is funded by the EU
