YOUTH NEEDS - considerations starting from a survey conducted among young people around me
What about the future of the young generations? Well, the answers are not always good. This was my impression, based on my experience and on the knowledge I developed in these last years of curiosity and active information. But the impression was confirmed not just by the many talks and conversation I had in these months, but also by the survey I decided to realize before writing this article.
I don’t want to complain about the situation or criticize, also because I do not have the competencies to build a constructive critic. The aim here, is to show what I collected around me concerning the needs and thoughts of the young people I know, trying to reach a most diversified public possible. So, I’ll try to outline the general situation revealed by the survey, focusing on a comparison between Italians and Macedonians. The questionary was for people from 18 to 30 years old. The sample of young people taken is extremely limited, but the point for me is to meditate about some important topics related to the everyday life of my generations and their troubles, fears, hopes regarding their future. In addition, I’m not referring only to the survey, but also to the exchanges of ideas and thoughts I had in the last years with my Italian friends and also in the last two months with the people I’ve met in Prilep.
I would like to focus on the answer of the young people who come from Prilep and the ones who came from Cernusco sul Naviglio (my city), using the two cities as model for the two countries. But the reason why I decided to write an article about this topic is also for my personal interest in discovering and understanding how the generation I belong to is living here in Macedonia, so I would like to pay more attention to the opinions of then Macedonian youth and make some personal reflections about it.
Getting to the point, which were the answers to the topics of the survey?
In general, the perception of young people on their future in their country is not in an enviable position, both in Italy and Macedonia. Some of them expressed to have hope despite the possible troubles they could go through, but this group was around the 15 % of the total, so not really a great percentage. The impressive number is that around 60 % of the young people who answered feel a frightened uncertainty about their future. I think that this reflects also a global situation, because of all that is happening around the world, and the last decade was not stable at all and the perspective for the young people are changed a lot. Plus, in Italy from the 2008 crisis the economic situation has become more unstable and among the youth policies the changes have not been enough; in Macedonia there was the war in 2001 and the youth protests in 2014-2016, that lead to some changes but still not enough. The interesting thing to me, was the percentage of people who answered to be in some way totally pessimistic about their future in their own country and disillusioned. They are around the 24 % of my survey and most of them are from Prilep.
Something that we have totally in common, is the fact that almost everybody contemplates the possibility to go away to work (94 %). Most of them don’t know if permanently or temporarily, but they are open for both the possibilities. A few of them are considering it permanently, and most of all are Macedonians. Indeed, I know that a lot of young people here in Prilep try to go away and build a life in some other country, for example Germany, and it is also one of the first things that I noticed during my stay here.
I wanted to understand more about the social and cultural life. Generally, young people are the same all over the world, so yes, what they need to have an interesting life where they live and to enjoy their everyday lives is almost the same. Of course, the environment is different, so they asked for different things depending on what their city already offered to them. For example, people from my city seem to be satisfied about the cultural activities, even if they demand for something more, and they asked for more music events and social life. But in general, they were not complaining the life in Cernusco sul Naviglio. Young people from Prilep instead have more requests, they ask for more stimulating social life, more cultural investments in the city, live music events, initiatives to help young people…
Another interesting fact is the level of satisfaction for what concern the educational system: there weren’t very bad grades neither high votes for both the Italians and Macedonians systems, so the average evaluation is of a medium level educational system. But they also had to specified if they think that the most of their knowledge comes from the school or the self-education. And most of the young Macedonian people who answered said that is from both or more from self-learning. This is another different fact from my Italian friends, who in most cases answered from the school, or sometimes from both. I think this is interesting because it seems that most of the young Macedonian people who have participated in the survey are really active self-learners and try to find stimulation also outside the school.
To come to an end, the youngest generations right now are living a period of uncertainty, and I can confirm this in my experience. The oldest one too, around 30 years old, seem to complain the situation, in particular for what concern the difficulties to find a job where they have grown up, in their beloved country. This is for both Italians and Macedonians. Everyone seems to totally respect their country and love the local environment. In my city, Cernusco, people would like to stay; in Prilep, people are really disappointed about the situation, they seem disillusioned or angry, and just want to go away, but they don’t want to regret Prilep at all and some of them also express the desire to try to remain here to contribute to some changes, but admitted also the struggles that this type of choice would mean.
My conclusion is a personal and deep desire to participate in building our future, bringing attention to all my generation. The youth policies should become effective, and the young people should never feel disillusioned. I have hope that things will work out, and I would really like to keep going on talking and exchanging with other young people around the world, like I’m doing here in Prilep. Every young people around the world should experience something like this, so that we can better understand each other, realizing how we are all the same, but with so different background and situations that sometimes we can’t believe how difficult could be for some young people to realize themselves in their home environment. I recognize my place as a privileged person, and to compare myself with other young people is making me more aware of the struggles that someone in my generation around the world is facing. I suggest to all the young people to not give up and try to study, inform, and learn to build the future they want for themselves, helping others to do the same.