The modern world over the past decades is undergoing more and more changes, both positive and negative. For example technological progress keeps pace with the widening gap between social strata.
The modern world over the past decades is undergoing more and more changes, both positive and negative. For example technological progress keeps pace with the widening gap between social strata.
Together with these conditions the responsibility for the activities of the society in which they live is laid in the minds of modern youth. In this regard, more and more young people are trying to help solve various social problems. Social projects are no longer just a duty of the state, but more of an initiative of not indifferent people.
In recent years social projects have been gaining great popularity which are aimed at solving problems through the activities of volunteers who care about the prosperity of their and other countries.
The most attractive topics for projects at present are psychological and mental health, education, rehabilitation of people after treatment for addictions, assistance to people with disabilities, interaction with socially unprotected layers of the population and children.
The popularity of such areas has its own reasons.
For example projects aimed at maintaining or restoring mental health are associated with great psychological pressure that the modern generation is experiencing, as well as with the flow of information and psychological stress. Experts argue that all these problems are also progressing due to technological progress and the introduction of the Internet, television and other sources of information into everyday life, as well as due to the unstable situation in the world and military conflicts in individual countries.
The topic of education is especially relevant for countries and regions where the poor are predominantly unable to afford education. Thanks to social projects, schools and classes are being created that are free to work with everyone, thereby improving the quality of life of people.
With regard to helping vulnerable groups and people with disabilities, this topic is always relevant, since even in the most developed countries there are problems with the rehabilitation and organization of life of such citizens.
Special platforms and forums are created to support those who want to help people. There not only current topics are discussed, but projects that can solve these problems are presented.
At the Youth Global Forum in Amsterdam particular attention was paid to ideas with a social focus.
The forum has been held for the fifth year in a row, supporting the initiatives of caring people.
“Last year I presented my project called Soft Skills School. This is a project aimed at developing social skills among young people, including leadership, achievement of goals, teamwork, development of emotional intelligence, that is all that is really important and helps with hiring, helps to be competitive in the labor market, and it’s not taught at universities. I believe that now social projects are attracting young people because this is another generation, which is sufficiently well-financed, and they need to give something and bring it to society, to do it better,” said a teacher at St. Petersburg University of Management Technology and Economics, business trainer Tatyana Afanasyeva.
This year, 12 projects were presented at the forum, most of which found support from invited guests and event organizers. Among the brightest ideas one can note the FadFed project on providing psychological online help to those who for whatever reasons cannot apply for it in person; project SHE(FF) providing assistance to women of Armenia in the labor market; and the winning project Bright Young Leaders Initiative supporting those who wish to study and gain leadership skills in South Africa.
“As long as I remember, Youth Global Forum was always about promoting socially responsible projects for the benefit of humanity. So was this Global Forum, too. I believe that young people nowadays don’t think selfcentric as generations before them did, so that might be one of the reasons why social projects are more in focus then before. Which, of course, is good for everyone.” said Goran Luburic, head of Marketing at Zagreb School of Business, member of the jury of the Youth Global Forum.
In addition to financial assistance participants in such events receive moral support, find like-minded people from different countries and share their experiences. It is these aspects that sometimes bring more benefits than money, says Goran Luburic: “Participants of Youth Global Forum, besides financial support, always have a chance to broaden their network of contacts with other participants, experts, keynote speakers, policymakers and other members of the Forum. Sometimes in life your personal contacts that you acquire over time can get you further than money can. It is always beneficial to do networking in the long run.”
It is worth noting that ten thousand euros have been allocated for the development of the winning project.