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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Creating best possible environment for life of youth in Serbia

Novi Sad, 1 October 2021

Prime Minister Ana Brnabic visited today “Opens” Youth Centre in Novi Sad and attended the signing of an agreement on financing a programme between UNICEF and “Opens”, which deals with the improvement of mental health of the youth and the presentation of that programme.

Brnabic thanked Novi Sad Mayor Milos Vucevic for having gathered the youth and civil society organisations around the City Administration, because this resulted in a series of projects which the Serbian government supported gladly.

Novi Sad, as the capital of youth and culture, is of extreme importance for the entire country as it serves as an example of good practice to other cities and municipalities.

According to Brnabic, the work on the National Youth Strategy is the most important at this moment, as well as the work on the Youth Law, the Law on Volunteering and a law that would regulate work practice.

Our goal is to finish this work by the end of the year, with the participation of youth organisations. The project “My First Salary” is also very important because financial independence of young people is the basis of everything. The youth unemployment currently stands at around 20 percent and in 2012 it was over 50 percent. But we are still not satisfied, and we will continue to work on that, Brnabic said.

She underlined that vaccination is the most important topic though, especially the vaccination of the youth, as more and more of them are getting infected with COVID-19 and because apart from vaccination, there is no other way to end the pandemic.

Over the past four years, “Opens” gathered two and a half million young people in its programmes and it continues to work on sustainable youth policy through its projects, and on shaping Serbia as a country of the youth.

Representative of the UNICEF Office for Serbia Deyana Kostadinova said that this organisation will offer professional assistance to the young people in case they need it.

We have signed this agreement today because we know that every fifth child in the world has problems with mental health. According to UNICEF research on COVID-19, 42 percent of children and 44 percent of young people in Serbia cited anxiety and irritability as the most common mental health problems, Kostadinova said.

Novi Sad Mayor Milos Vucevic said that “Opens” was not a project for one year, but an accelerator that should give volume to youth policy.

We have known for a long period of time which are the most common problems, but we are now finally offering solutions to them. We have demonstrated that with “Opens” and with these new projects. We are all aware that the youth and education are our greatest development chances, and this is what we base our local and national policies on, Vucevic concluded.