UNSS launches series of cultural events around Serbia

This spring school councils of Serbia are organising various activities on the topic “Youth culture in my school” as a part of the Operation a Day’s Work programme of the Union of Secondary School Students of Serbia (UNSS). Operation a Day’s Work (ODW) is a concept based on youth volunteerism, secondary school activism and the social responsibility of companies. UNSS conducted ODW in December 2011 for the second time in the past two years, as a ninth country in Europe that has adopted this concept. The idea is that students who want to contribute fundraising for the First Secondary School Students’ Fund Students for Students volunteer in local companies for one day.

After a successful volunteering day, money collected in the First School Student Fund is distributed to 17 school student councils with ideas on how we can upgrade cultural life in schools, encourage youth creativity and affirm young artists. Literature nights, renewing of school libraries, foundings of debate clubs, new plays of drama clubs, film and art festivals are just some of activities initiated and implemented by school students themselves which is the core of this youth to youth concept of UNSS.

On 3rd December 2011 about 2,000 students from 22 towns and cities in Serbia took part in volunteering. An important fact is that Students for Students Fund is self-sustainable, which means that only a small amount of money is left for launching the project next year.

Operation a Day’s Work enables students to take part in volunteering, encourages them to explore different fields where social interactions happen and provides them with hands-on experience in their field of studying. Secondary school students in Serbia are interested in volunteering, but based on a research conducted by the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Serbia, only 20% of them claim that they had a chance to volunteer and 75% said that they would accept to if they had an opportunity. UNSS is creating such opportunities, which makes ODW very popular among secondary scholars. What we have in our practice so far is that there is a large number of students want to volunteer, but not that large number of companies accept to have a volunteer for a day. This firms us in our beliefs that we are on the right way to make our communities more adjustable and open for young people, by increasing the number of students and companies that get involved every year.