Imagine that a youth centre is about to open in your community. How can you find out what young people are interested in? What do they need? What would they like to learn? What events would they attend — and how often? What should the opening hours be?
Or perhaps your community already has a youth centre, and activities are already taking place there. But how do you know if it is enough? How can its work be improved? What kinds of trainings and activities could be offered to young people? How can the centre be organised more effectively?
In situations like these, the best thing you can do is ask young people themselves.
That is exactly what happened from April 23 to 27 in Holloko, Hungary, where the Visegrad Youth Centre Summit took place. Young people and youth workers from Hungary, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, and Slovakia came together to explore and reflect on the work of their youth centres.
These were three intensive and inspiring days full of знакомства, discussions, exchange of experience, partnership building, and idea generation. You can see exactly how it happened right here:
To help you better feel the atmosphere of the summit, we are sharing reflections from our participants from Kremenchuk.
Diana
The summit became a truly wonderful experience for me. It was not just a summit, but a lively space full of activities that gave me new ideas and energy. I came there looking for inspiration — and I truly found it.
During the summit, I learned many interesting things about youth work, worked together with other participants on ideas for improving youth centres, and also gained experience communicating in two languages. It was an unforgettable experience that strengthened my communication skills and fully motivated me for future work. Thank you for such a great opportunity for development!
Viktoriia
This was my first exchange project, and I would rate it 10/10. It was very interesting to communicate with foreigners not only about their countries, cultures, and traditions, but also about the youth centres they came from and presented.
The Egysek team was incredible! Everything — from the food to the accommodation — was great. There were many new and interesting activities, and the organisers constantly asked participants for feedback. They really took our opinions into account when planning the next activities, which is why most of them were engaging and fun.
I would also like to thank the Prostir Idei team for the opportunity to take part in this summit and represent our organisation.
Kateryna
The youth summit left me with very positive impressions. It was exciting to attend such an event abroad, meet new people, and exchange experiences with participants from different places.
I especially enjoyed communicating in English, because it was a great opportunity to improve my language skills and become more confident in speaking.
The summit was useful because we learned many new things, improved our teamwork skills, and practiced expressing our opinions. Everything was presented in an easy and engaging way, which made participation and communication comfortable.
Events like this are very important for young people because they help us grow, become more confident, and discover new opportunities.
Alisa
In my opinion, the summit was very useful and gave both me and my group important knowledge that we can use in the future to improve our youth centre.
Because of this experience, it became easier for me to start conversations in groups of unfamiliar people. I also remembered several ideas that would be great to implement in our centre. In addition, I learned more about what other youth centres do and how they attract more young people to participate in their activities.
