Dear friends, the first part of the series is here, we will look back at the previous year, which brought a lot of novelties, challenges and fears, and which started industriously as usual. Given the fact that today it is difficult to focus on the positive and, in general, to think of something that has nothing to do with the Corona, we are very glad that at least in this virtual paper we can remember what the world looked like just a year ago.
During the first two months of previous year, it was very easy to travel outside the borders of our country; for most of us Corona was still just a beer and every Monday meetings were held for our volunteers in the office of our organization.

Meetings were organized even when there was no news and when no future activities were planned because KOM 018 always had and will have an open door for all those who want to be a part of creating the better world. The meeting room was often small for everyone who would come on Mondays to apply for some street action or for some training or exchange, and at the beginning of the previous year there were many opportunities. Tickets were booked, trips were planned and participants prepared with mentors for their new adventures.

During January, we traveled to Italy and Albania where we organized two international trainings and young people from Serbia had the opportunity to spend quality time with their peers from Italy, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Albania, Greece, Bulgaria, Ghana and Argentina.

In the following months, representatives of our organization traveled to Belgium, Czech Republic, North Macedonia and Montenegro. We organized a partnership meeting for the project “It’s Time! – Chapter 2”, we attended a meeting of coordinators organized by Erasmus + Sport, we participated in the regional forum “Days of Dialogue”, we organized an international competition in the Karl Popper debate and a final conference within the project “Hate Fighters in Action”.

And now from this perspective we look at the period when it was possible to organize trainings or creative workshops that fully met the needs of young people – that is what we miss the most. Over the years, our team has grown and changed and adapted its way of working because of the young people who grew and learned with us. We miss the role of youth workers and trainers, not because of the workshops that last for an hour or because of personal satisfaction, but because of young people we helped and raised awareness about some problem and encouraged them to think and debate even during breaks and free time. We have seen, from our practice, that it only takes a few days for a young person to recognize some of his/her talent or to face his/her fear and overcome barriers. All our activities, in addition to dealing with a certain topic, include close mentoring work with our volunteers and participants. During the trainings we get to know each other the best through socializing during the breaks between workshops and during that free time participants have the best opportunity to practice what they learned during sessions.

We can’t wait for the return of our volunteers and we are preparing many new opportunities for them to continue where we left off, with fully charged batteries and eager to share new experiences and knowledge.