We had such an amazing event this weekend! Our Solidarity Festival definitely managed to revive Skopje’s urban living, by skillfully combining the concepts of art, education and solidarity.

The first day of the Festival went great. An impressive number of people came to see our photo exhibition titled “Celebrating Solidarity!”. The twenty best photos from the photo competition were presented, while the three winning pictures won symbolic awards by Mladiinfo. People also wrote messages on solidarity and drew inspirational graffiti on our panels, easily capturing every by-passer’s attention.

This atmosphere continued intensively throughout the second day! People were coming all the time, eager to share their thoughts and visual creations on the walls. What is more, the three winners of the best photos also came and were publicly announced during the first Skopje Street Forum we had later during the day.

The Street Forum was the first event of such type in Skopje. In the first part, we heard the inspirational stories of Zorica M. Crnosija, Pece Mladenovski (Superhiks), Peshe (GreenOut & Legijata), Ana Trpeska and Maja Kazakovaa from Metropolis Radio. These five remarkable urban people spoke about their own personal input for the city and what they have done for improving its urban culture and lifestyle. In the second part, we opened the panel discussion for the cyclists and activists, who shared their thoughts on citizens’ solidarity and how we can all work towards making our city a more modern living space. Finally, the first Street Forum finished with the working groups, where the audience wrote recommendations on how Skopje can revive its much lacking urban culture. Of course, the panels and the photo exhibition remained open during the Forum and until later in the night, when many visitors shared their thoughts and positive impressions again.

We truly believe that through this happening, we actively involved citizens in becoming more aware of the mark they leave in the society, whereby reminding them of the values and examples they set for the generations to come. We made them stop and think of the direction in which they develop, by becoming more willing to make a change and indeed improve the community we all live in.

*The planned activities are taking place as part of the project: “Celebrating Solidarity” supported by the “Europe for Citizen” programme of the European Commission.

The project is managed by Ana and Vlade Divac Foundation, where Mladiinfo is a partner organization form Macedonia.