Views

Be ready!

The situation in the region with regard to the civil sector in the countries can be improved only with making a net of the civil organizations and with the mutual acting in big projects in the region, with an aim of its renewal and development. It’s interesting that in the past period in Macedonia an endless number of projects were realized that really helped for the development of the civil society, even though I think that there’s a need for more activities that should contribute for much bigger development. My experience from the past period showed that certain problems can be solved separately, but for some of them the mutual acting in the region is really necessary, and in this context, as an example, I’d like to mention the peace education for which it’s necessary to act in the whole region if we want better results. The organization I come from itself – The Scout union of Macedonia in the past three years realized a project in partnership with the national scout unions of Serbia and Monte Negro and of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the whole project was supported by the Scout union of France, the European scout region, the main financier or donor of this project is the Ministry of foreign affairs of France.  The project that was called MOBA (MOBA – a folk custom when the neighbours, usually boys and girls, help somebody for free or with mutual return in the bigger village issues) had an aim to contribute in the development of the region, offering a quality programme directed towards the youth, relying on the experience of the national scout organizations that work on local level as civil organizations, through the wide net of volunteers. In the project itself three areas of acting were established: expanding the cooperation and the regional activities, strengthening the participants in the project, local projects, and within those areas three key subjects of acting were developed: peace education, education for democracy and development of civil society and youth policy. In this project, a large number of young people from the scout organization and from other civil organizations participated on many seminars and trainings that were organized in the past three years, and all those gatherings contributed for developing a mutual net for cooperation and exchange of experience and ideas. I shouldn’t forget that MOBA itself finances a certain number of local projects, and part of them were on the basis of partnership of the organizations participants in the project. MOBA contains the youth programme that is really very important and a lot of time was spent on doing analyses for the needs of the young people in the region today, and also there was an offer for strengthening the organizations. Enough volunteers were trained that in the future should realize the programme dedicated to the youth. In the future, the union, together with the above mentioned national unions, will continue to be a partner in these projects, and there’s already a plan for realizing a similar project, probably on even bigger level with including other countries from the region (Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania). I’d like to point out that the person responsible for this acting of the scout organization in Macedonia and in the world is our founder lord Robert Baden Pauel who started the scout movement and maybe made the biggest peaceful organization in the world that currently has 28 million scouts that act in 216 countries. This gentleman deserves a huge respect, because the enormous number of young people who follow his path are a proof for that. In his honour, on account of his birthday, on 22nd February every year all scouts in the  world celebrate the World day of the scouts or as we call it “The remembrance day”. I’d like to share a part of the last message of this great person: “Try to leave this world a little better than the way you found it and when your time to leave it comes, you can leave it happily, with a feeling that not even in one moment you wasted your time, but you gave the best of you”.

Exactly this part of the final message of Lord Robert Baden Powel leads all scouts in life. If all the direct participants in the civil sector and all those who aren’t part of it, really try to leave this world at least a little better, through our activities, believe that the future of all young people will be better and brighter.

The motto of the scouts is “Be ready”. We, the scouts, are always ready, what about you?

Nikola Zdraveski
(the author is a general secretary of the Scout union of Macedonia)