25th december, 2009.

Group "Let’s..." had 10th anniversary celebration on 16th of December. The Celebration was organized in Belgrade Youth Center. The performance which contained parts of theatre play "Curve for Gauss" and DJ contributed to the joyful atmosphere. Many partners of this organization, donors, ex associates and friSends attended this celebration.

December 4th, 2009.

Group "Let’s..." and Cultural Institution "Vuk Karadzic" produced now inclusive dance performance RESET.

Premiere: December 10th 2009, 20h, at Cultural Institution "Vuk Karadzic"

Choreography: Danica Arapovic
Music: Aleksandra Ðokic
Art director: Boris Cakširan
Dramaturgy: Marko Pejovic
Perform: Ana Ignjatovic-Zagorac, Danijel Todorovic, Jelena Stojiljkovic, Jovana Rakic, Senad Sopnic, Stojan Simic.
Narrators for blind and visually impaired people: Danijela Jovic i Marijana Kraker
Technical Support: Petar Kalinic, Borislav Stamenkov – Bugi
Design of promo materials: Jelena Kneževic
Photo: Aleksandar Milosavljevic

In the world of modern technologies, word RESET means "to clear any pending errors or events and bring a system to normal condition or initial state" (Wikipedia).

Electronic systems have their life cycles. They get created and they operate. They also die. They get attacked by viruses. They lose their energy by activating several sub-systems simultaneously. Sometimes, they fail to recognize other systems, establish communication, be compatible and cooperate. They get bugged, enter uncontrollable states and break down.

They have to be stopped, all activities have to be cancelled, in order for them to restore their energy and for processors to be able to operate again, and thus contently "buzz".

It seems that we have the same situation with humans. The RESET performance is a story about waking up, about restarting.

November 20th, 2009.

Along with partner organizations from the three countries, "Hajde da..." Group has realized a youth exchange "Discover Your Identity". The exchange was organized within European Commission's Youth in Action Programme.

This project targeted youngsters and youth workers, coming from Slovenia, Poland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia.

The exchange took place in "Katai" Guest House, in Mali Idjos, as of October 30th until November 7th, 2009. Throughout these 8 days, participants had chance to gain knowledge on their identity, as well as to define identity as such, through workshops that tackled religion, culture, tradition...

Moreover, it was an opportunity for them to visit religious objects in Subotica, and to share experiences with each other. During the process, participants have created two short movies, on stereotypes, prejudices and youth's concerns.

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Nevember 18th, 2009.

During September and October 2009, "Hajde da..." Group, Association of Blind and Visually Impaired People of Serbia "White Cane", and Sports and Recreation Association of People with Disabilities "Everything is Possible", have organized contemporary dance workshops. These lasted for 11 days, and have been participated by persons with disabilities, professional dancers and choreographers, amateurs, other artists and interested individuals.

There have been organized three presentations of the outcomes, meant for wider audience to get introduced with choreographies created throughout workshops, as well as to experience all the advantages of working with mixed groups of participants.

Workshops have been facilitated by Mr. Boris Caksiran and Ms. Sanja Krsmanovic Tasic, co-facilitated by Ms. Jovana Rakic, assisted by Mr. Senad Sopnic and Mr. Danijel Todorovic.

This project is financially supported by Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, City of Belgrade – Secretariat for Culture, and Ministry of Culture of Republic of Serbia.
We highly appreciate cooperation we have with: Cultural Institution "Vuk Karadzic", Dah Theatre, Cultural Centre "Stari grad", Association of Students with Disabilities and Centre for Independent Living Serbia.

October 27th, 2009.

Introductory Conference and Training regarding compilation of the Local Youth Action Plan in Municipality of Pozarevac

The participants were addressed after registration on plenary session by vice-mayor Vukica Vasic, YO coordinator Davorka Mitrovic, youth committee member Aleksandar Ðokic, representative of Group “Let’s..” Danijela Jovic and president of Youth Council Veljko Obradovic

Participants were arranged in work groups according to their interest during the work session of the Conference. They also got to know each other, made a plan for further work of the group, gave their opinions on youth’s problems within the area that the group was dealing with. They also exchanged examples of good practice and proposed solutions to the problems.

There were formed seven work groups for compiling the Local Youth Action Plan:
1) Sport, Activism and Volunteering
2) Informing and Educating
3) Spare time, Culture and Mobility
4) Health
5) Ecology and Sustainable Development
6) Social policy and Safety
7) Employment, active participation of young people in making decisions and Agriculture

Coordinators of work groups and their assistants were designated, and the first work group meeting was held right after the designation.

The Conference was led by Danijela Jovic and Nenad Maletin, the experts in the area of Youth Policy.

October 25th, 2009 was appointed as the date for the first training.

More details about the work groups and the process of compiling Local Youth Action Plan in Municipality of Pozarevac on facebook profile of Youth Office of Pozarevac.

Project is realized by Group “Let’s..” in cooperation with Municipality of Pozarevac and financially supported by The International Centre Ulof Palme, SIDA, Balkan trust for Democracy and The Fund for an Open Society

October 15th, 2009.

Group "Let’s..." participated in large-scale seminar "Let's Evaluate with our Neighbors", Warsaw, Poland 6th - 10th of October 2009

Organized by regional SALTO Centers (SEE, EECA and Euromed) and three hosting National Agencies (Slovenia, Poland and France), this event had the aim to assess the cooperation between Programme Countries and the Neighboring Partner Countries within the Youth in Action Programme, as well as to promote quality in the cooperation.

On the event, Group "Let’s..." promoted the Training course organized in Serbia "Performance as a tool for social youth action" and in addition Group "Let’s..." presented its experience in working as Youth in action Contact Point in Serbia.

On the second part of the event, around 60 participants also had a possibility to discuss on the possible challenges they faced during project implementation and to give feedback on the work of European Commission, National Agencies and Salto Resource Centers. All the results of the event will be published in the Compendium. More information on:
http://www.salto-youth.net/Evaluate_with_Neighbours/

September 10th, 2009.

"Hajde da..." Group, supported by European Commission and "Youth in Action" Programme, will organize a youth exchange, entitled "Discover Your Identity". The exchange aims to help young people to discover their identity, through friendship and learning, as well as defining identity issues from perspectives of religion, culture, tradition... Participants will also learn on how they themselves contribute to creation of their own identity.

This project will gather participants from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Poland. One of the main outcomes will be a jointly made short film about feelings, needs and concerns that young people from Balkans have.

Youngsters who are interested to take part in this project need to fill in the application form and send it to marijana@hajdeda.org.rs, by September 25th, at latest.

Number of participants is limited. Selected candidates will be contacted by September 30th, at latest. More information on the project can be found here.

September 4th, 2009.

"Hajde da..." Group took part at the International Youth Day celebration, which was held on August 12th. The event was supported by City of Belgrade Youth Office, and it was participated by some 30 NGOs.

"Hajde da..." Group promoted its ten-years-long activism, and programs it realizes. This presentation was finalized with a short performance, did by some 20 volunteers who cooperate with our organization.

This play was a so called "freezing", and aimed to make people pay more attention to youngsters.

July 3rd, 2009.

Introductory Conference and Training regarding compilation of the Local Action Plan for the Young in Obrenovac Municipality

The Introductory Conference, which the process of compiling Strategic Concern for the Young started with, took place in the small hall of SKC on June 11th at 17 o'clock. After registration participants were addressed by municipality president Željko Jovetic, YO coordinator Duško Krstic, Danijela Jovic, who represented Group "Lets..." and student Živka Stankovic .

During the conference participants were arranged, according to their interest, in working groups, got to know each other, made a plan for further work of a group, gave their opinions on youth's problems concerning the area that the working group was dealing with, exchanged examples of good practice and proposed possible solution of the problem.

The coordinators of working groups and their assistants were named, and after that the first working group meeting was held.

After conference, from June 22nd till June 24th, the Training for development of Strategic Concern for the Young and Local Action Plan for coordinators, assistants to coordinators and participants of the thematic working groups in the process of compiling Local Action Plan for the Young took place in the Gallery of Centre for Sport and Culture of Obrenovac.

Participants have familiarized themselves better with the steps of developing the Action Plan, developed skills and competence for PR, lobbying and community mobilization and got prepared for the research period.

The Training was led by Danijela Jovic and Nenad Maletin, experts in the area of youth policy.
More details about work of working groups and process of compiling Local Action Plan for the Young in Obrenovac Municipality on http://www.obrenovac.rs/

Project supported by The International Centre Ulof Palme, SIDA, Balkan trust for Democracy and Obrenovac Municipality

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Introductory Conference and Training regarding compilation of the Local Action Plan for the Young in Savski venac Municipality

On Wednesday, June 17th at 14 o’clock, in European Centre for Culture and Debate "The City" began The Introductory Conference which the process of compiling Strategic Concern for the Young started with.

The gathered were addressed by Miloš Kovacevic, committee member of Savski venac Municipality, Youth Office coordinator Emilija Jovanovic, and Group "Let's..." was represented by Danijela Jovic and Nenad Maletin.

After getting known with the process of compiling Local Acton Plan, participants were arranged, according to their interest, in working groups, which were formed on previous meeting:

- Health and Recreation
- Education
- Employment
- Informing and Culture
- Safe Social Policy – equal possibilities
- Active participation, Activism and Volunteering

After that, working group participants got to know each other, made a plan for further work of a group, gave their opinions on youth's problems concerning the area that the working group was dealing with, exchanged examples of good practice and proposed possible solution of a problem. After presentation of work of the working group, the coordinators and assistants to coordinators of working groups were named.

On Thursday and Friday, June 25th and 26th, in the ceremonial hall GO Savski venac was held a Training for development of Strategic Concern for the Young and LAP for coordinators, assistants to coordinators and working groups participants in the process of compiling a Local Action Plan for the young.

Participants have familiarized themselves better with the steps of developing the Action Plan, developed skills and competence for PR, lobbying and community mobilization.

More details about work of working groups and process of compiling Local Action Plan for the Young in Savski venac Municipality on http://www.mladisavskivenac.org.rs/

Project supported by International Centre Ulof Palme, SIDA, Balkan Trust for Democracy and Savski venac Municipality.

June 29th, 2009.

12th training for development of international youth projects within Youth in action Programme of the EU held in Serbia

"Hajde da..." Group, as an officially accredited Contact point for EU's "Youth in Action" Programme has, on June 24th-25th, organized 12th training, in Subotica. Local trainings aimed to enhance competences of representatives of youth NGOs and youth offices from all over Serbia, on how to use Youth in Action Programme, and what are the procedures of developing project proposals within that Programme. we have so far trained more then 150 participants across Serbia. All the trainings where implemented by mixed teams, composed out of one of 28 multipliers and 11 trainers from "Youth in Action - Serbia" training team (for more information on the team, kindly visit this link).

Activities of Contact Points are supported by the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Republic of Serbia, SALTO SEE RC and European Commission's "Youth in Action" Programme.

June 24th, 2009.

How 9th of May, Day of Europe was celebrated by Contact Points in Belgrade and Subotica.

June 6th, 2009.

"Hajde da..." Group, supported by European Commission and "Youth in Action" Programme, has organized an education, aiming to train artists and youth workers on how to use performance as a tool of social action. The training course lasted for 8 days. It was an opportunity for its participants to build up knowledge they already have, and to gain new one, in the field of performing, as well as to get their motivation fostered, to use performance as a powerful method in youth work.

Workshops took place in Belgrade, May 21st-28th, 2009.

The training course was run by Mr. Johannes Deimling, German performer and guest lecturer at several European universities. Since 1998 he developed the teaching concept for performance art "TOOLS and how to use them". Mr. Deimling has so far performed Europe and world-wide: in Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Estonia, Austria, Romania, France, Italy, Spain, Great Britain, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Israel, Canada, Cuba, as so forth (more information can be found at: http://www.bbbjohannesdeimling.de/ ).

Project gathered participants from Serbia, Macedonia, Slovenia and Romania. During the course, they created their own performances, that were played on May 26th, at two locations in Belgrade: the first one – at the plateau in front of Beogradjanka Building (corner of Masarikova and Srpskih vladara street), at 18h; the other one – in European Centre for Culture and Debate "Grad" (Brace Krsmanovic St, 4), at 20h.

Performances tackled issue of isolation in contemporary society, need for closeness and our "cry" to achieve it, prejudices, human trafficking, human rights, violence, war, auto-destruction...

The audience have reacted intensively, which proves that performance is a tool strong enough to raise important social issues.

June 1st, 2009.

On Friday, May 22nd, in conference room at Municipality of Obrenovac, was held the first meeting within the process of development of LYAP for this municipality’s youngsters. Participants first got introduced with phases of process of development of strategic document on youth issues, which was followed by signing partnership agreement between the Municipality and “Hajde da…” Group. Both parties, thus, committed to cooperate on development of LYAP.

Participants made stakeholder analysis, and concluded that it is crucial that all of the key actors should contribute to development of LYAP, in order for it to be sustainable, and the very process – transparent and democratic; furthermore, they agreed that it is in best interest of local governments, NGOs, local community, youth branches of political parties, non-formal groups of citizens, youth organizations, institutions, media, businesses and others – to mutually cooperate and contribute to achievement of common goals.

Finally, participants listed out strategic fields in regard with youth work, in Obrenovac:
- Education
- Culture, sports, recreation
- Leisure time, activism, voluntarism
- Employment
- Social welfare
- Accessibility of information, mobility
- Active participation of youngsters in decision making processes
- Health and ecology
- Security.
Participants have formed a coordination body and a team that will be in charge of organizing the start-up conference, to be held on June 11th, 2009.

This project is financially supported by Olof Palme International Center, SIDA, Balkan Trust for Democracy and City Municipality of Obrenovac.

March 26th, 2009.

Group "Let’s..." with the support of British Council, European Youth Foundation and Cultural institute "Vuk Karadzic", organized training for youth leaders, contemporary dancers and persons with disabilities on how to use contemporary dance in work with mixed-ability groups.

Training lasted from 7th-15th of March. Workshop leaders were dancers from Candoco Dance Company, Victoria Malin and Elinor Baker.

At the end of the training public presentation of achieved results were organized with 30 participants on the stage.

Photos: Andijana Lubina

February 22nd, 2009.

Group "Hajde da..." organized on February 19th 2009 in the Palace of Serbia (SIV) in New Belgrade the conference "Youth Office - Where/What We did/We will?" as a part of the project: "Youth Offices – pillars of youth activism and democratic citizenship" which Group "Hajde da..." realizes in cooperation with Ministry of Youth and Sport of Republic of Serbia, and with financial support by Fond for an open society, Ulof Palme International Center and SIDA.

The conference attended 37 representatives of Local Youth Offices from all over the Serbia, representatives of Ministry of Youth and Sport. Facilitators were trainers who have a long-lasting experience in area of development and implementation of Youth Policy: Nenad Maletin, Daniela Jovic and Sever Dzigurski.

The aim of the conference was to find a mechanism for more effective and more efficient way of work of Local Youth Offices. It contained workshops that helped coordinators to gain new knowledge and skills in the field of office work, but first of all, they have exchanged experience and problems which they deal with in work and communication with Local Governments, MOS and young people.

On the conference was also worked on the references which, after consultations between participants, will be sent to Local Governments, Ministry of Youth and Sport and young people in order to improve development of care for young people in Serbia and to establish mechanism of active youth participation, monitoring and active, not only declarative, responsibility taking by state and municipalities and cities for improving youth’s quality of life.

February 15th, 2009.

Project "Body frame" was sucesfuly realized in 2008.

We have organized three sets of workshops in Belgrade, and one in Paracin during the summer. There was a casting held in August 2008, with an aim to select and form a team of dancers for the performance. As of September 2008, five persons with disabilities along with three contemporary dancers have started preparing the play, named "The Curve for Gauss". The premiere was on 10th of December.

Project will be continued in 2009.

In March two dancers from Candoco Dance Company (www.candoco.co.uk contemporary dance company for disabled and non disabled dancers). The training is meant for activists of NGOs and contemporary dancers that want to contribute to improvement of position of the young in their countries, and to use contemporary dance in work with mixed-ability group.

Training will include participants from 7 counties (Greece, Montenegro, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, FYRO Macedonia and Serbia). At the end of the training there will be organised public presentation of achieved results.

Project is supported by British Council, European Youth Foundation and Cultural institute "Vuk Karadzic"

February 15th, 2009.

"NO EXCLUSION", manual for using non-competitive games in work with heterogeneous groups is created by joined action of four organizations – The Great and Little (Serbia), Association of blind and visually impaired people of Serbia "White Cane" (Serbia) Association of Students with Disabilities (Serbia), Knowsley Youth and Play Service (Great Britain), and Group "Let’s…" (Serbia).

Its aim is to support process of inclusion of children and youth with disabilities, and developmental difficulties. Kit has 175 pages, bilingual (Serbian and English), and 8 illustrations.

You can download it here.

January 29th, 2009.

Group "Let’s…" and Ministry of Youth and Sport of Republic of Serbia invite you to the conference "Youth Offices – Where/How We did/We will ?"

The conference will be held on February 19th 2009, 11-17h in Palace of Serbia, Mihajlo Pupin Boulevard Nr. 2, Belgrade.

The Conference represents the final phase of project "Youth Offices – pillars of active citizenship and youth participation", which Group Let’s organizes in partnership with Ministry of Youth and Sport, and which is financially supported by The Fund for an Open Society, Olof Palme International Center and SIDA.

The aim of the conference is to exchange experience and to develop mechanism for more effective and more efficient way of work of Youth Offices which are in permanent dialogue with youngsters and which provide active and equal youth participation in making decisions and their representation.

January 28th, 2009.

The aim of training is to strengthen Youth Offices staff and relevant individuals who are active participants in Offices work and development process, also the beginning of creating the strategic plan for next 3 years.

This training represents one of the activities of the project "Youth Offices – pillars of youth activism and democratic citizenship", which Group Let’s organizes in partnership with Ministry of Youth and Sport and Obrenovac municipality, and which is financially supported by The Fund for an Open Society.