The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is working with Italy and Greece to support young people in Albania. For International Youth Day, which the UN celebrates on August 12 to underline the fundamental role that young people must play in the common struggle to build a better world for all, Italy and Greece have co-financed a project to support the OSCE’s commitment to the inclusion of young people in peace and security. With an editorial in the newspaper Albanian Daily News, Ambassador Vincenzo Del Monaco (Head of the OSCE Presence in Albania), Fabrizio Bucci, the Ambassador of Italy in Tirana, and Sophia Philippidou, the Ambassador of Greece in Tirana confirmed the commitment of the OSCE Presence in Tirana to work with young people to seek solutions to security problems by providing them with training in conflict resolution, violent extremism, domestic violence, and gender-based violence. As part of that initiative, young Albanians were also involved in electoral education projects during the run-up to the April 2021 general election. All of these activities fall within the “Youth Trail” project, which has already had three editions in 2017, 2018 and 2019 that helped Tirana to win the title of “European Youth Capital 2022”. Young Albanians aged between 15 and 29 represent 23.2% of the total population, which makes Albania one of the youngest nations in Europe. For that reason, following more than a year of pandemic, the OSCE has renewed the YouthTrail initiative with the support of Italy and Greece. The new series of YouthTrail initiatives will begin this coming October, bringing together young journalists from the region in an effort to increase their understanding, to secure their collaboration in improving media freedom as it faces new challenges, and to safeguard the rights of journalists in the region. The outcomes of this work by the young journalists will then be made public in the course of a special session of the South Eastern European Media Conference.
You can read the editorial here. >>
