MLA-DOST.DOBRO MAGAZINE

Trening se održao od 2.5.2022. do 8.5.2022. u Portimao-u na jugu Portugala.  Svaki dan treninga bio je podijeljen na tri seta aktivnosti. Trening su vodili Carolina Loureiro (DYPALL Portugal) i Gianluca Rossino (predsjednik Savjeta mladih Collegno).

Naziv cijelog projekta je „Fostering a Culture of Participation: Mainstreaming Local Youth Councils in Europe“ i dio je ključne aktivnost 2 Ersmus+ programa. Prvi sastanak organizatora organiziran je u listopadu 2021. u gradu Collegno u Italiji, a nakon treninga dogovoren je još jedan sastanak u Belgiji koji će se održati u Studenome 2022. U projekt uključeno je 5 zemalja, a to su: Portugal (DYPALL Network), Italija (Comune di Collegno), Belgija (Carrefour Régional et Communautaire de la Citoyenneté et de la Démocratie asbl), Slovenija (Mladinski svet Ajdovščina) i Hrvatska (Kraponsko-zagorska županija).

Našu županiju predstavljalo je 6 predstavnika savjeta mladih. Županijski savjet mladih predstavljali su: Marija Gebert, Matija Kraševac, Hrvoje Novak. Savjet mladih grada Pregrade predstavljao je Karlo Pasariček, a Savjet mladih općine Konjščina predstavljali su Mirta Marija Mušec i Mateo Štabek.

Prvi dan nakon upoznavanja u timovima smo peko aplikacije Actionbound ispunjavali zadatke istraživajući Portimao. Nakon enegizera pokušali smo definirati pojam “Savjet mladih” prvo kroz individualni pristup, a zatim i u čitavoj grupi. Nakon toga smo dobili za objasnili kako tehnikalije lokalnih i županijskih  savjeta mladih po državama uključenim u projekt (Portugal, Italija, Slovenija, Belgija i Krapinsko-zagorska županija.). Na kraju dana i zajedničke večere, u predvorju hotela, održali smo interkulturalnu večer gdje smo prezentirali hranu, piće i kulture različitosti između država.

Drugi dan počeli smo sa prezentacijom zadatka kojeg smo dobili dan prije o tehnikalijama lokalnih i regionalnih (županijskih) savjeta mladih. Nakon toga radili smo na ljestvici participacije, te smo ponovno u grupama podijeljenima po državama detaljnije upoznali ostale sa detaljnim radom naših savjeta mladih. Hrvoje, Marija i Matija objasnili su i prezentirali rad županijskog savjeta mladih, teme, program rada, način funkcioniranja na regionalnoj razini. Mirta i Mateo prezentirali su rad lokalnog savjeta mladih iz Konjščine, a Karlo je objasnio rad Savjeta mladih u Pregradi. Nakon toga smo u grupama otkrivali prednosti i nedostatke određenih modela te smo radne aktivnosti završili debatama istih. Navečer smo imali organizirani obilazak gradom.

Treći dan započeli smo prezentacijama grupnih radova od prethodnog dana. Zadatak je bio da u internacionalnim grupama objasnimo i povežemo RMSOS pojmove i objasnimo na koji način i zašto su one važne u radu s mladima i u radu Savjeta mladih. Nakon toga, objašnjeni i prezentirali su nam primjeri dobre prakse od Creccide-a koju su nam prezentirali François i Nathan iz Belgije, i Mariana koja nas je upoznala sa pojmom dječji gradonačelnik i podijelila sa nama svoja iskustva. Bruno nam je nakon toga prezentirao što su to politike za mlade. Poslijepodne smo imali slobodno poslijepodne za uživanje u sunčanom Portimao-u.

Četvrti dan smo započeli sa Kahoot kvizom na temu politika za mlade i ciljevima za mlade. Nakon toga smo individualno odabrali 3 od 11 ciljeva za mlade koje bismo rado implementirali u lokalnoj i regionalnoj zajednici. Nakon ciljeva za mlade razgovarali i debatirali smo o e-participaciji mladih i upoznavali se sa raznim platformama koje se koriste za e-participaciju mladih. Poslijepodne smo pokušali kreirati idealan Savjet mladih na način da smo grupno iznosili pravila i tehnikalije savjeta, a kasnije smo glasali za idealne ideje. Za kraj dana dobili smo zadatak da sa osobom s kojom dijelimo sobu porazgovarao o tome što kada se vratimo kući, koji su nam prvi koraci, što smo naučili i kako ćemo to implementirati na naše savjete mladih kad se vratimo.

Peti i posljednji dan započeli smo sa safarijem. Podijeljeni u 4 grupe, naizmjence smo se izmjenjivali na 4 aktivnosti (memory, SALTO, toolkit, budući projekti). Kasnije smo individualno podijelili sa grupom koji su naši idući koraci u kreiranju sadržaja ili dijeljenja stečenog iskustva na razini lokalnih i županijskih savjeta mladih. Nakon ručka proveli smo evaluaciju u grupi i individualno te smo preko “Dear future me” stranice sebi poslali pismo o stečenim kompetencijama koje ćemo primiti na e-mail 12. Kolovoza 2022. na međunarodni dan mladih.

Ovaj je trening za mene bio predivno iskustvo. Upoznala sam mnoge mlade ljude sa novim i kreativnim idejama, stekla nova prijateljstva, izmijenila informacije i kontakte sa ljudima s kojima ću možda u budućnosti provoditi nove projekte i širiti znanja na mlade ljude diljem Europe.

Author: Marija Gebert

Photos: Hrvoje Novak i François Lefevre

Ženski nogometni klub Pregrada postoji od 1996. godine. U klubu trenutno postoje tri kategorije: pionirke, kadetkinje i seniorke.

Svaka kategorija je važna jer djevojčice već od malih mogu počinju učiti osnovne nogometne tehnike, a kasnije to samo nadograđuju i poboljšavaju. Ove godine sudjelovali smo u projektu UEFA X DISNEY u okviru UEFA Playmakers programa koji je nastao u suradnji krovne europske nogometne organizacije i Disney-a. Program je namijenjen djevojčicama u dobi od 5 do 8 godina i ima jedinstven pristup fokusiran na naraciju, glumu, maštu i dječju igru kao glavne elemente u poticanju djevojčica na igranje nogometa te razvijanje motorike i fizičkih vještina. Naše igračice našle su se u ulozi trenerica.

„Sve se baziralo na crtiću Frozen 2 što mi se posebno svidjelo jer su curice voljele taj crtić, na njihovim licima vidjelo se oduševljenje te su rado sudjelovale u svim aktivnostima. Ovo mi je bilo posebno iskustvo te sam puno naučila što mi je dobro došlo kao budućoj odgajateljici i trenerici. Nadam se kako će se ovaj projekt provesti i sljedeće godine te da će odaziv biti još veći.“ – Nina Vukić

Cilj svake djevojčice i djevojke je igrati u seniorskoj ekipi koja se trenutno natječe u 2. hrvatskoj nogometnoj ligi. Unatrag 3 sezone ŽNK Pregrada natjecala se u 1. Hrvatskoj nogometnoj ligi, no nažalost nismo se uspjeli tamo zadržati. Danas seniorsku ekipu čini puno mladih djevojaka koje imaju volju i želju za treningom i napretkom pod vodstvom Rudolfa Hustića koji je trenirao i A reprezentaciju Hrvatske. Trenira se 3-4 puta tjedno tijekom sezone, a utakmice se odigravaju nedjeljom. Predvođeni kapetanicom Andrejom Šćukanec-Hopinski, ove sezone zauzeli smo 3. mjesto na tablici. Andreja je prošla sve kategorije u Hrvatskoj nogometnoj reprezentaciji, a ima nastupe i u A reprezentaciji. Jedna je od najboljih napadačica, a mlađim igračicama je motivacija i prije svega podrška.

„Igrati za reprezentaciju, poseban je osjećaj, potpuno drugačiji nego igrati za klub, u tom trenutku rade samo emocije koje su započele od samog poziva u reprezentaciju. Bila mi je čast, ali još jedna obaveza predstavljati svoju zemlju i nositi dres reprezentacije, mnogi su ginuli za taj dres i za njega ću se uvijek boriti iznad svojih mogućnosti. Mislim da je ovo san svakog dječaka i djevojčice koji igra nogomet u Hrvatskoj, a meni se radom i željom taj san ostvario. Najviše mi ostalo urezano u srce osvojeni turnir u Srbiji. Kada igraš za reprezentaciju, to ti postane drugi dom i obitelj te su uvijek prisutne pozitivne emocije.“ – kapetanica Andreja Šćukanec-Hopinski

Osim Andreje, kroz povijest kluba za reprezentaciju je nastupalo više naših djevojaka pa se tako na golu Hrvatske reprezentacije našla i naša golmanica Laura Fiket, koja bi posramila mnoge muške golmane svojim obranama, a 2020./21. godine zauzela je treće mjesto u izboru za najbolju seniorsku sportašicu Krapinsko-zagorske županije. Za reprezentaciju je nastupala i Tanja Bucifal koja se posljednjom utakmicom ove sezone oprostila od aktivnog igranja nogometa za seniorke.

„Sve je počelo kada sam imala 10 i pol godina, od tada sam aktivna igračica ŽNK Pregrade uz stanku kada sam igrala 2 godine u ŽNK Jackpot Rijeka. Osim što sam igrala za A reprezentaciju Hrvatske od svoje 15. pa sve do 23. godine, nikada se nisam usudila napraviti neki veliki korak iako sam imala pozive iz raznih klubova kao što je Koln iz Njemačke. Pregrada je bila moj drugi dom, moja obitelj, sjajna ekipa i prijateljstvo koje još i danas traje. Iako više neću igrati za seniorke nastaviti ću trenirati pionirski uzrast i pratiti seniorke kao predstavnik kluba.“ – Tanja Bucifal

Ovu sezonu završile smo na najljepši mogući način, došli su nas podržati navijači i tribine su bile pune. Oni su neumorno navijali, bez obzira što utakmica nije nosila težinu (imale smo bodovno sigurno 3. mjesto). Meni osobno takve stvari puno znače i na njima sam uvijek beskrajno zahvalna. U ovih 6 godina treniranja propustila sam samo jednu prvenstvenu utakmicu. Nikad mi nije predstavljalo problem propustiti rođendane, krštenja, krizme, izlaske…Nogomet je stvarno posebna igra i uvijek sam se trudila biti mu 100% predana. Zahvaljujući nogometu imam prijateljice i prijatelje koji su tu za cijeli život, a zahvaljujući njima imam uspomene koje ću zauvijek pamtiti.

Ovim putem želimo pozvati sve zainteresirane djevojčice i djevojke koje vole nogomet da nam se pridruže u našem putovanju kroz ženski nogometni svijet u kojem nas uvijek prate dobre utakmice i druženja. Vjerujemo da ćemo treniranjem, voljom i borbom biti još bolje svake sljedeće sezone.

Author: Lana Stanković

Photos: Facebook stranica ŽNK Pregrada

Ahmet Kavruk is a journalism and history student. Last year, he went to Vilnius, Lithuania for Erasmus. He explained his Erasmus experiences

Many students try to do Erasmus in recent years. Owing to the Erasmus and Erasmus+ projects, young people can go to another country and see other cultures. Ahmet Kavruk is one of these students. 

Ahmet who is 25-years-old is living in Vilnius, Lithuania for the Erasmus right now. In October, he went to Vilnius to do Erasmus and started to study at Mykolas Romeris University. Kavruk, who will return to Turkey in July, is studying  journalism at Marmara University for a second bachelor’s degree and doing a master’s in the department of History at the Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul, Turkey. I talked with him about his Erasmus journey.

How did you decide to do Erasmus?

I decided to do Erasmus in the Pandemic. When we cannot go outside, I applied the Erasmus hopelessly. Because there was uncertainty due to the pandemic. I attended the online Erasmus exam. In addition, the fact that everything is done remotely due to the pandemic has slowed down the official procedure process, at least in Turkey. By the time I took the exam, the acceptance date of most universities abroad had expired. The university that I am studying in Lithuania right now was one of these universities. However, despite all the negativities, with the help of my luck, I first got the right to Erasmus and then I was able to do Erasmus with the help of my school in Lithuania.

What did you gain during Erasmus? What opportunities did Erasmus bring?

First of all, it was a great opportunity for me to improve my foreign language. I met a lot of new people during Erasmus, I went to countries I have never been to before, and I ate food I have never eaten before. I think it’s an incredible experience in terms of all these things. In short, I can say that “Erasmus was a process in which I developed myself”.

What do you like to do in your free time in Lithuania? What do you do?

I love travelling. With the advantage of being abroad, I try to go to different countries in every gap. As much as I can, I follow artistic events and festivals in the places I’m in. I go to museums. One or two days a week I spend time outside with my friends. I can say that this is how I spend my free time.

Do you like living in Vilnius? Why? 

Yes, I like it. Being in Vilnius at the moment is very beneficial for me in terms of education and personal development. But I wouldn’t want to live here for long. Because of the effect of living in Istanbul for a long time, I sometimes call Vilnius a small city. I wish the transportation was more advanced. I can say that public transportation ends earlier than in Istanbul. This is probably one of the biggest problems I’ve had here.

What is your favourite activity that you like doing in Vilnius? 

There is a bookstore that I love on Gediminos Gatve Street in the city center. I go there and get my coffee and work on my computer. Quiet, nice and cheap place. It’s a very student friendly place. There is also another place that I love. Every week at least one day I take my beer and watch a basketball game there.

Do you think that the activities and opportunities in the city where you live are sufficient for young people?

Although I think it is largely sufficient, I do not think it is easily accessible. I think this is due to both the lack of announcement and the transportation problem. Undoubtedly, the financial dimension harms many students. But I still think that every student who researches well can find many social activities suitable for them. Of course, it does not mean that I ignore the problems such as accessibility, transportation and materiality that I just said.

Do you want to live in another city or country instead of Istanbul / Turkey? Why?

Yes, I think I am happy to be in Vilnius right now because of Turkey’s intense political atmosphere, but ultimately I will go back to complete my education. The thought of returning worries me. In the long run, I would like to live in a more developed European country. I think this will relieve me economically and accordingly, I will develop myself better. 

What would you recommend to someone who wants to be an Erasmus student?

First of all, I think that every university student should have this experience. The Erasmus process is long. After getting accepted to Erasmus, you have to deal with bureaucratic work while registering to the school you will go to and then in the process of obtaining a visa. In this process, I think the most important thing is to stay calm and prepare the necessary documents step by step correctly. It is necessary to be patient and a good researcher in order not to have problems and to handle official affairs quickly. Of course, apart from this, I think the cities and schools to visit should be well researched. It is very important to look at the possibilities of cities and schools. I think if there are more opportunities in a city, it will be better.

Author: Evin Arslan

Photos by Ahmet Kavruk and Buse Yüksek

If I say Turkey, what will you remember about Turkey?

Maybe, seaside, vacation, beautiful buildings and some traditional food. I remembered this feature when I looked from Croatia to Turkey. But if you live in Turkey, it can be so different for you especially if you are young. 

Let’s check closer to Turkey. Turkey is a Eurasian country. Turkey’s population is almost 84 million people and there are 81 cities in Turkey. Istanbul is the most crowded city in Turkey. Istanbul’s population is almost 15 million people according to 2021 data. But also there are so many undocumented immigrants. That’s why the population of Istanbul may be much higher than the official figures.

Young people generally prefer to live in İstanbul because of the job, opportunities, and activities. Let’s listen to youth and explore its good and bad features.

“I don’t have so much free time in Istanbul”

Fatma Çiftçi who is 24-years-old that is studying German Language and Literature at Sakarya which is a city in Turkey. She grew up in İstanbul but she went to Sakarya when she got into university.

Çiftçi says that she likes sitting in a cafe and talking with her friends; if she is alone, she likes watching movies and series in Sakarya. Çiftçi expresses that Sakarya has a good nature but people who live in Sakarya are conservative.

She returned to Istanbul last year because the lessons are online. Also, she is working as an office worker. Fatma Çiftçi explained that she doesn’t have so much free time in Istanbul because she has to work all the time. But if she has free time, she prefers watching series or reading books. She says that everything is so expensive in İstanbul. She states that she was going to the cinema before but she cannot go to the cinema because movie tickets are so expensive.

“Do you want to live in another country?” She replied to this question:

“I want to live in Germany because there is a higher quality of life. Young people in Germany have higher self-confidence because they are supported in many different areas. Young people in Turkey are not supported in every field.”

Taking photos, playing the oud…

Görkem Durusoy who is 24-years-old studied Journalism at Elazığ which is a city in Turkey. Now he is working as a freelance photographer and journalist. The family of Durusoy moved from Elazığ to Istanbul because of economic difficulties in 1989. That’s why he grew up in Istanbul but Durusoy went to Elazığ because he got into university. He says that he was forced because he went from such a big city to a small city and couldn’t find any activity at the beginning. He states that after he made friends, he and his friends created creative activities. Durusoy says that Elazig has a very good music culture and that he learned to play the oud by going to the music community. He likes to travel around Elazig, take pictures, work in the local newspaper and the school newspaper. But he says that Elazığ is a small city and there aren’t many activities for young people. And he says people who live in Elazığ are helpful but conservative.

Now he is living in İstanbul and he describes to this city:

“İstanbul is a very nice city for people who have a traveler spirit and free soul because of historic buildings, big districts to see. Meeting people from different cultures, catching up on different stories are amazing for journalists. Every district of Istanbul brings me different activities. For example, drinking boza in Fatih, eating fish and bread in Eminönü, taking photos in Sultanahmet, and drinking raki in Karaköy. But of course, there are also negative aspects. Transportation is so expensive, finding a job is difficult and life is getting more and more expensive. Young people became more and more worried because of these situations. Activities in Istanbul are enough for young people but if you don’t have money, you cannot do anything.”

“Do you want to live in another country?” he answered the question as:

“I want to live in another country because I want to experience different cultures and I want to live comfortably economically and socially. I want to live without worrying about the future.”

“I like walking in quiet and cycling near the sea”

Tutku Sönmez is 24-years-old and she is working for an NGO as a communication and campaign manager. Previously she was living in Balıkesir, a city in Turkey. She has lived in İstanbul since 2015.

Sönmez likes watching performing arts like musicals, opera, visiting museums and galleries; meeting with her friends, and eating outside. But Sönmez says that she cannot do these activities because of economic difficulties.

She says that there are so many activities and opportunities for young people in İstanbul but she states that she doesn’t like to live in İstanbul because it’s especially very crowded. That’s why Sönmez says that she likes walking in quiet and secluded places and cycling near the sea.

“If you are living in İstanbul, you feel like you are trying to survive,” says Sönmez and adds: “Istanbul is a city where time is limited and time is mostly spent on the roads. Even if young people go to an event, it is difficult to find a safe, fast and economical way to return home after the event. Istanbul is a cosmopolitan city but consists of small ghettos.”

Author: Evin Arslan

Tips, tricks and advice for NGO’s, small businesses and anyone else who needs social media marketing

Social media is used by 58.4 percent of the world’s population and the average daily usage of social media is 2 hours and 27 minutes, according to Datareportal reasearch from January 2022. The start of the COVID-19 lockdown period contributed even more – there has been a significant surge in internet and digital activities. But the number of people using social media is still continuously increasing, with an average of 13 new people signing up for the first time every second.

With the usual apps of Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, FB Messenger and Wechat which have taken over the first six places on the chart of globally most used social media platforms, TikTok had announced that it had passed the 1 billion monthly active user figure at the end of September 2021. It has taken TikTok just 5 years to reach this milestone.

Considering the just growth of social media we can see the importance of digital presence for brands, small businesses, non-governmental organizations etc. Big and successful brands are trying their best to hire professionals in marketing industry who have exceptional skills and creative mindset to create the best image of their brands online, on the platform that their clients are using. Hiring a whole team of professionals and investing in marketing is worth millions of dollars and the results of campaigns are often not tangible – brands invest enormous amounts of money to be visible, recognizable, important which leads to other values such as customer loyalty.

But what about small businesses and organizations who can’t pay a team of professionals to do the social media marketing for them? If you have just a little bit of creative component in yourself, the will and time – you can do it yourself for no money!

I have started doing social media marketing at the start of my studies when I joined the student council. Then I started working with small companies and NGO’s who didn’t have the time for social media. As a student I couldn’t afford expensive systems for creating and organizing content, so I have found multiple free platforms that helped me work through the barriers.  Five years have passed since I’ve been actively learning about social media and the trends that are changing rapidly. I did my master’s study in Marketing field, learning more about digital marketing and content production. According to my short, but valuable experience I am writing a list of tips, tricks and advice for doing your own social media management.

1. WHERE TO BE? HOW TO START?

Deciding on the platform you want to use is up to the fact where you can find your targeted public. The young audience (18 and less) is usually not on Facebook anymore – instead, they mostly use Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. People in business are on LinkedIn, and generations up to gen Z are on Facebook. Datareportal platform offers up to date information on Global Social Media Trends. If you determined your targeted audience, you will easily find the social media platform that would work best for you. If you have multiple accounts and a website, try combining it on free platform linktr.ee. You can always add and remove links from it.

Share your profiles with people whom you know, follow other accounts that could be valid to you or who you want to support. If you have a workplace that other people visit, create a QR code with QR Code Generator so they can easily scan it and follow you! 

2. WHAT TO POST AND WHEN?

Maybe it would be the best to get yourself a pen and paper, at this point. Write down your company name and start an association game. What do you do? How could you represent your offer/products/activities online? Along with this, could you include other content that would interest your audience – like showing the process of making your product, tips&tricks, advice, quotes, recommendations, interesting facts? Please, be careful here to put the source and make sure to fact check the information.

The timing is the one thing you would have to test. For example, Instagram likes consistency. You can try posting at 4 pm for one month, and at 8 pm the other, and see when your audience is moslty online. Instagram also likes when you use the new tools it offers, such as reels – so try all the new with every update because then Instagram will push you on its own.

3. VISUAL ASPECT OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media is mostly a visual tool and therefore it is important to create visualy pleasant content. The start point here is to determine your brand color palette, you can take it from your logo if you have one. This is when Canva comes in handy. Canva is a free graphic design software that lets you alter photographs without having any prior expertise or knowledge of photo editing. Using Canva’s free color palette generator you can easily get the colors you can work with. You can use Canva to create all of your content – you will quickly figure out how it works since it is very user and beginner friendly. It is also a great source of inspiration!

4. SCHEDULING YOUR CONTENT

Did you know that you can schedule your content so the chosen platform posts for you? A lot of people are not familiar with this life saving tool! The one that is free and that I use is called Creative Studio by Meta, you can find it in the search bar inside the Facebook applications. It connects Instagram and Facebook profiles and posts at the time you want. When posting try coming up with an interesting, but not so long text that will interest your audience in reading, liking and commenting. Remember, every like, comment and share is valueable as it’s rising your online visibility! Also, don’t forget about the hashtags… They are not of much use on Facebook (only if you want to put an emphasize on something), but on Instagram they are extremely valuable if picked correctly. For this purpose, I use a mobile app called Tagify and choose the moderately popular hashtags. You don’t want to put the most popular ones as they have a couple of thousand uses and your post will just get lost then. And please, use emojis – the world is a prettier place with emojis. ☺ 

5. SOME OTHER ADVICE

For photo editing I use Snapseed and Adobe Lightroom, and for video here is Video Guru app. If you want to see how your Instagram feed would look like in advance, before you post anything – you can try the mobile app Feed Preview. All the messages from Facebook and Instagram are combined in a mobile app called Business Suite. 

The world wide web provides us with many free options to manage our own social media. Although the platforms are free, the social media managing can be pretty time consuming, but worth it in the end! It is a great way to connect with your audience and stay important online. All the apps and platforms I recommended are user friendly and I guarantee you they will make your life easier if you want to get your socials on the next level and learn on the way.

Author: Paula Petrinec

 The more we grow up, the more we realize the importance of the concept of time. Sometimes we feel that the time hangs heavy on someone’s hand. And sometimes we do not understand how time flies. However, we all do like the chill moments when we close our eyes after an exhausting day in a rush. We, sometimes, might even forget to spare some time for ourselves within the fatigue of the day, backlogs, deadlines. In fact, we can beneficially do many things in 24 hours when we plan it well, 

At this point, we thought that it might be perspective-changing to confer with young people. Even if time is equal for all of us, the concept of time is individual. Comparing ourselves to others might be uncomfortable for us. When looking from this point, within the interviews, there are students, workers, both workers and students. The time is equal for those however, while 24 hours would be enough for some, It is not enough for others. Herein, maybe, we should observe how useful and wisely we can benefit from the time.

In other words, how much time can we separate for ourselves while we are lost in time and find ourselves in the rush of life? Yes, maybe we would feel better when we separate time to get away from our continuously thinking mind. Let’s imagine a moment how we can benefit from our free time even when it makes us smile when we think about it. The answer of “separating time” was more or less the same. The young people are very aware of this subject and pay attention to separate time. While some of them can have the whole weekend for themselves, the others have time in the first opportunity. Still, we can see that the seven days are equal for each of us. However, we are different in individual aspects.

Not only separating time, but also we dissent when it comes to free-time activities. While some of us prefer resting and chilling, others prefer singing in their free time. However, there is one mid-point, which is to watch films or TV series. I guess this is within our favorite activities. The other mentioned activity is to drink coffee with friends. In this point, we can see that Croatian youth love to talk, share, socialize and separate time for their family and friends. In addition to that, they also pay attention to working out frequently. We all know the countless benefits of working out. Croatian youth is also very well aware of this. 

And sometimes, we end the day without doing anything. When we look back, we feel sorry for spending a day in vain.  In fact, after the conversations we held, we saw that young people think au contraire. To put it all in simple terms, sometimes we can give an off day to ourselves as a reward. The only thing that our brain and body need might be just resting and doing nothing. They all agreed that it causes nothing but sadness and regret to force ourselves to do something when we need rest. But they also agreed that if there is something that they have to do, but do not complete, then they feel bad about it. However, they also underlined that if there is no task to do, forcing themselves to do something only cause tiredness.

To sum up, as a result of our interview with the young people, we had a chance to see the importance of free time and the priority of our requests. We can also say how beneficial and progressive the free time activities can be. Before concluding, I would like to add this quote that biased me from a book written by Ana Tan “Free time was the most precious time when you should be doing what you loved, or at least slowing down enough to remember what made your life worthwhile and happy.”

Author: Erkin Duman

Photo by Marija Gebert

Hello! I am so happy and excited to write this article. Because we finished everything and mla-dost.dobro magazine is published in April. 

First I want to introduce myself and explain how we started to publish mla-dost.dobro magazine. I am Evin Arslan. I am from Turkey and I am here to volunteer in Mreža udruga Zagor. Most young people go to another country owing to the European Solidarity Corps Project. I am one of them. Before I came here, I was living in Istanbul and I was working at a newspaper. I was working as a reporter/correspondent. I like to write articles and news. When I came here, I wanted to continue journalism. When I told Ivana my magazine idea, she liked this idea and she really supported me. 

We had our first meeting with young people. Gabrijela Rogan, Tin Krznar, Rebeca Jana Bačani, Marija Gebert, Erkin Duman, Ivana Radanović joined. We talked about the magazine process and the name of the magazine. Paula Petrinec couldn’t join but we kept in touch all the time. 

When you read this magazine, you will see these names. Erkin, Marija, Paula, Gabrijela wrote so good articles for this issue. Graphic Designer Marija Gebert explained the tips and tricks of design. Erkin Duman wrote a very fascinating story. Paula told her Erasmus experiences during the Covid times, Gabrijela wrote about the interesting hobbies of artists and Katarina drew the illustration for Earth Day, 22 April. Also, I had an interview with professional dancer Margareta Sinković. She is very talented and she told very important things about contemporary dance and performance art. 

Maybe you can ask why you need this magazine. We wanted to make this magazine because we wanted to create free space for young people. Young people can find articles about youth, culture art, dance, movies and more! Also, young people can send us their articles. If you have an idea for articles, feel free to write to us. We are open to new ideas. 

When I finished this article, I wanted to say thanks to Mreža udruga Zagor’s colleagues for supporting us. Also thanks to photographer Luka Smuk for sharing his photos for the Margareta Sinković interview. 

I hope you will enjoy it when you read this magazine!

https://www.zagor.info/Cms_Data/Contents/ZagorInfo/Folders/Dokumenti/~contents/EW82ZYXNCG6BBK27/mla-dost-dobro-magazine.pdf

Vidimo se u sljedeći mjesec!

Writer: Evin Arslan

Photos: Erkin Duman