| Short profile: | “Vega” Youth Center is a non-profit, non-governmental organization, based in Belgrade, Serbia. Vega was founded in December of 2000 to offer new perspectives and possibilities to the young people of Belgrade. Most of them grew up in the war surroundings when most of the intercultural communication was blocked, and the prevailing European media discourse on Serbia was negative. Hence, they developed the cultural identity of stigma, which in return gave rise to the construction of a set of prejudices and ignorance towards other europian cultures, colored by feelings of rejectedness, miscomprehention and in the same time desire to communicate and represent themselves in a different, more positive manner.
Vega’s mission is to raise social awareness among Serbian youth and to assist them in increasing their understanding of the cultures that surround them. Vega’s main goal is strengthening creative socialization among Serbian youth. Vega achieves its goal through i) promoting tolerance; ii) providing a platform for information exchange iii) organising seminars and youth exchanges iv) promoting non-formal education and v) developing intellectual perspectives.
The new premises of Vega Youth Center are in the ground floor of the newly built, floating hostel Arkabarka, ( www.arkabarka.net )an ideal space for the organisation of our intercultural activities.
In April 2008 Vega YC launched the long term Visual Culture Research Center project by organising regular weekly screenings of documentary and anthropological films and debates in the space of its center. In this initial phase of the project we have organised, apart from the weekly screenings, the following events:
- Round table with the title «Away from the Visual Babylon» in cooperation with the Ethnographic Film Festival of Belgrade.
- «Whose story is it? » Lecture and screenings on Visual Anthropology by PhD Frode Storaas (general secretary of the Nordic Anthropological Film Association, NAFA).
The experience of the past year has been valuable and has given us the confidence to continue our work on media education, which is an underdeveloped field in our country and we are organising, apart from the Youth In Action activities, a training course for youth from Serbia on video advocacy, an international workshop on film and architecture and a workshop on the cultural identity of soundscapes.
Since February 2008 Vega YC has been accredited as sending and hosting organisation for EVS, having already sent one volunteer in Greece and hosting one since October 2008. We have organized successful promotional events and presentations of the EVS program accompanied by the screening of the documentary film on the EVS experience, that was co-directed by Vega’s project manager Vasiliki Akritidou.
Other exchanges we have organised in the past:
“Serb-Albanian and Norwegian Youth Exchange – Youth Dialogue and Empowerment in Organizational Perspective”, 2003– project based on dialogue between young people, non-violent communication and constructive conflict resolution, using intercultural learning method, with putting an accent on organizational empowerment and linking represented high schools. Organizations involved were ATRC - Pristina, Nansen Dialogue - Mitrovica, PRESS - Norway and “Vega” Youth Centre.
“European Youth Exchange (EYE)”, 2002 – capacity building, inter-organizational exchange project, based on intercultural learning method, developed by “Vega” Y.C. and PRESS – Save the Children Youth from Norway.
“European Youth Exchange (EYE)” 2001 – project developed in cooperation with organizations and a school from Norway: Save the Children, World Voices and Skogn Folkehogskole. The aim of the project was to introduce participants with life and problems that young people, YNGOs and institutions are facing in two represented countries;
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