Opinions & Interviews

BREST, 26 October (BelTA) – Belarus’ experience in working with young people can be interesting to other countries, Rashed Mustafa Sarwar, a representative of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Belarus, said at the opening of the parliamentary hearings of the Youth Parliament at the Brest City Council of Deputies, BelTA has learned.

A few years ago Brest joined the UNICEF-initiative Child Friendly City. Primarily the project encourages young people to participate more actively in the economic and social life of their city, region, country. "Dialogue between the authorities and young people should be focused on personal development, human potential. This work is carried out in Brest at the highest level. On the whole, Belarus has enough good experience to share it with other countries in Europe and around the world,” said Rashed Mustafa Sarwar.

The Youth Parliament of Brest was created in 2012. Now it has approximately 40 members. They are grouped according to their interests and jointly develop projects aimed at improving the life of the city. "The Parliament is very active. Every year we have more and more members. We take part in various activities. Our task is to improve the lives of young people so that our peers who come to Brest would say that our city is really friendly to children,” said Yana Ageevets, the Chairperson of the Youth Parliament.

Four projects are currently underway in Brest under the auspices of the Youth Parliament: School Virtual Museum, the patriotic tour "For Peace in the World", "Let's Make City Brighter" and a volunteer project "Give a Smile to Children" which is aimed at setting up game rooms in children's city hospital.

The participation of youth in the life of their country is very important, said Valentin Miloshevsky, the deputy chairman of the permanent commission on health, physical education, family and youth affairs of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus. "It is encouraging that young people are interested in different aspects of the life of the country. Life goes very fast. In 10-15 years the state will be governed by today’s youth,” he said.

The parliamentary hearings are held in Brest as part of the large-scale campaign UN70 Belarus Express for Sustainable Development Goals. Rashed Mustafa Sarwar said that Belarus, with the support of UNICEF, implements numerous projects to prevent child injuries, to promote social adaptation of disabled persons, inclusive education, prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. One of the priorities in cooperation is the de-institutionalizing which aims to reduce the number of children living in orphanage institutions.