First ever #YouthGoals have been born during EU Youth conference 2018 and now they can be used by young people and stakeholders in order to create youth friendly environment & policies. This is the most clear and sustainable result that the Structured dialogue has reached so far. What made EUYC in Sofia special:

• Concrete product, ready for implementation and promotion – #YouthGoals (http://www.youthgoals.eu/);
• Global representation with the participation of UN representatives wchich made a possible a bridge on youth policy between EU and UN;
• Cohesion with the priorities of the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU with a special focus on young people, Western Balkans and connectivity;
• Young people with hearing impairment had the opportunity to express their opinion on EU level;
• Team of young people from the #MinistryOfYouthSport who realized the event dedicated to #EU2018BG;

Youth policy both at national and/or EU level has been one of the main priorities we observed in the last decades. Policy for young people have enolved in youth created policy and as cross-sectoral process it has brought different platforms to express the vision of the youth in EU.

In the last few weeks before the delivery of the EUYC 2018 I was going back often to 2010 when this process has started and I had the pleasure to participate in the first European youth conference held in Jerez, Spain in the frame of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU. At this point, after the national consultations, the priorities that young people wanted to see in the policies were:

• Youth employment and its impact on youth autonomy. Access to labour market;
• Entrepreneurship and self-employment of young people;
• Working conditions and equal treatment. Reconciliation of private and working life;
• Training and education, life long learning and mobility. Innovation, creativity and the use of new ICT;
• Social dialogue, participation and rights of workers;
• Social cohesion and inclusion.

Coming back to our reality in Sofia in 2018, the consultation held following the conference in Tallin highlighted what youth in EU expressed as present challenges:

• Education and Learning;
• Employment;
• European youth programmes and organisations;
• Gender Equality;
• Inclusion;
• Information Dialogue and Difference;
• Mental Health and Wellbeing;
• Rural Areas;
• Young people and the EU;
• Young people, the Environment and Sustainability;
• Youth Spaces and Everyday Participation.

Some of the overall topics are still “on the table” eight years after the Structured dialogue has started, but we can not deny that the development is somewhere there as we are going deeper and deeper with the challenges youth people express. As an overall impression, young people still experience lack of information and the instruments to reach unorganized young people still need to be further improved and their voice need to be acknowledged.

Comparing the event in Sofia and the event in Jerez 8 years go I have found out both similaries and differences in the quality and delivery process of the event. One of the major differences I have found out is that young people have the same attitude to very different decision-makers. In the last few years, I am quite pleasured to follow closely the work of the EU Commissioner, responsible for education, youth, culture and sport. Until the moment he has shown a completely different aproach than the one youth sector has been used to: he has implemented multiple open dialogues with young people, he has listenied and acknowledged young people and their ideas, he is working with an youth team and not least, he is still an active professor in the university of Budapest every week. At the same time, during the EUYC I felt the same attitude from the youth representatives that I have observed when the sector had quite different responsibles that didn’t recognized young people so much. That made me reflect if the young people are ever satisfied and is this what is bringing them actually forward, shaping the world they want to live in or it is just an manner of complaining that is bringing us in unclear spot as society.

Coming back to the event in 2018 itself… After some years focussed on sport sector, but still working with young people on daily basis, I had a proposition to become a facilitator of the event. For me was an amazing honour to be able to participate in event that I have been part twice abroad and at that moment of participation I have never thought that Bulgaria will host the EUYC one day. As an active person in multicultural environment, I am really proud that Bulgaria is hosting the major events I am participating abroad and people I work with can come and see the place where we are trying to deliver innovative for our country events, methods and opportunities. The added value that we could bring on board was to facilitate the process of how young people, together with the youth stakeholders are creating together the first ever #YouthGoals. I have always strongly believe in the power of the concrete products and for me the responsability to create a safe journey for my group to deliver quality product was quite, quite high. Much more on the topic that I has, that was both corresponding with what I am doing and with the quickly changing EU we are living in and namely: Young people and the EU.

As I have experienced so many times before, the destiny has inspired some really amazing people to join the group I have been responsible to and in the tight frame that we had with the short timing that those conferences are providing, we have really enjoyed an intense, but very fruitful working slots. We needed to consider youth development in the member states, the achieved until the moment, the public consultations with more than 49k young people and what they want to see as #YouthGoal. There were moments that I thought we won’t make it as the time was pressuring and we will never have the enough balance and proper tools that work for each young person in EU. But yes, having the devoted and motivated participants, we have made it real!!! On the next morning, when I open my eyes, first thing I saw was an e-mail with the finished #YouthGoals. And they were perfect! And as we know, if we want to reach our goal, the goal need to be clear and quality one and it is exactly how those goals look like. From the “beautiful mess” that the consultation created, EU youth sector reached to have concrete product of 11 specific goals that can be used both on local, national and EU level, depending on the activity of the youth sector itself.

I am really thankful for the opportunity to elaborate with highly motivated youth participants and stakeholders one out of eleven youth goals: Connecting EU with Youth. And if you are wondering what are the rest? Here they are, the quality product that #EUYouthConference 2018 delivered:  http://www.youthgoals.eu/

I really believe that in this intense 3 days something beautiful has been born in Sofia. Some aspects might be better, some might be worst. But the goal has been reached on 100%. As each platform, this has also allowed some personal ambitions in different frames as a pity attempt to reach personal advantage.  And it is not new. We have seen it during the Danish Presidency, maybe it has happened again in some other formats. How fruitful this attitude is to the young people outside of the meeting rooms – they are the only ones that can say.

Young people are creators of their own future that they already live in and it is up to them what they want this future to be and fight, show, promote an attitude of change-makers on practice, with concrete results. I am seeing this emotion in the young people I work on daily basis – the dream for better world and society and their fight in the local reality to create it. Supporting those young people that do their best and work hard to achieve it is the heart of those #YouthGoals and it is what we need to promote at any level and everyday.

Don’t forget the main purpose of EUYC 2018 and what the youth achieved!