Youth in Kosovo advocate to reduce the youth unemployment rate

Even though their minds and hearts are full of energy, ideas, passion drive to work; the majority of youth face so much difficulties to find a job.  At 55.9 per cent (according to the Kosovo agency of statistics for 2013), Kosovo is among the European countries with the highest rate of youth employment. For many, it is easier to find a part-time employment as a waiter or in a market while they are still in school than it is to find full time work upon their graduation.

Miranda, 24, is an educated and enthusiastic girl from Kosovo graduated on social science. She wants so much to get employed soon and work  as a social science professional, but this is getting very difficult for her. Miranda’s  is interest is to give her contribute on the issues that concern her community and especially youth.

Focusing on this problem, the Local Youth Action Council (LYAC) board, of Peja/Pec, Kosovo which represents the youth of the area recently identified one obstacle. They  found out  that one of the reasons that youth have trouble finding a job is they lack information about the role of the regional employment centres, which function like a bridge between registered applicants and businesses that have vacant positions that match the education and experience of the registered  applicants.

Local Youth Action Council of Peja/Pec has under its umbrella 31 youth NGOs composed of youth between the ages of 15 and 24. The council is established and function as result of Kosovo law for “Youth empowerment and participation” of 2009. This LYAC and other 9 councils under its umbrella are being supported by a European Union funded project implemented by World Vision and with funding from Austrian Development Cooperation, Youth Capacity and Action for Change project. The role of these youth is to meet together periodically being the voice of the youth by addressing problems and fostering youth activism in social life and development. Their mission is to raise awareness of the youth issues and propose potential solutions at the local government through network collaboration and contribution on the youth Action Plan activities.

To confirm the unemployment rate in their city and identify potential solutions, they spent one month surveying their peers. They interviewed 600 young from Albanian Serbian and Bosnian ethnicities in their area. Their efforts revealed that 70 per cent of youth were unemployed and only 8.5 percent of them knew about the service of the regional employment centres.

“The reason we undertook this initiative was to visualize the unemployment problem in our area,” says Jetlira, 19, the Local Youth Council leader.“The [unemployment]results were very high, as we expected them to be,” she says, noting that as a result they identified the need tostrengthen the collaboration between the regional employment centre in Peja/Pecand the youth who seek for a job.

After completing the survey, which was supported by World Vision the youth decided to organize a debate meeting. They invited more than 40 unemployed youth, Youth Director from the municipality, Mr Engelbert Zefaj, the director of the Regional Employment Centre and youth representatives from 9 otherYouth Councils from the LYAC board. Unemployed youth shared their concerns and learned more about the service these centres offer.  While the director Bajram Demaj, of the Regional Employment Centre for Peja/Pec, explained the procedure foryoung people tobe registered at the centre and shared more information on what the centre can offer them.

[Youth learning more about service of the regional employment centres in Kosovo]

Miranda, 24, who wasalso part of the meeting said, “It was a good opportunity for me to participate in this initiative and find out the ways that [they] can help me and other young people to get employed.”

The next step for the youth group willbe to continue promoting the role of the Employment Centre and to share this initiative with other members of Local Youth Action Councils so that they too can raise the awareness across Kosovo and in this wayhelp the residents have a better chance of finding a job and enjoying a better life.

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