I left my parents and become independant when I was 19. I have started working at the Open Society Institute while I was studying, mainly on the projects related to the psycho-social support aimed to the refugees and young people. Luckilly, the job was organized in such manner that I had freedom to create my own schedule, travel and study at the same time… I was also highly involved in non formal learning projects, gaining variety of skills and knowledge helping me to manage more than challenging reality… Quite bussy time … At early 1990’s, my fee was 5 times bigger than my father’s, so at some point I have supported my parents, as well as my twin brother (the student not being so lucky to have a job). Of course, I am talking about extremely difficult times that we had in the Balkans, including inflation and bombing… I remember that my attitude was " I do not accept this as my reality", and over the years the things become more clear, so it has been proved that my iner voice was right… I simply shouldn’rt accept political (quite brutal) game which was colouring my youth to a great extent… in contrast, I switched it into massive learning opportunity… exhausting thouhg…
Anyway, some years ago, I moved to another country (the one starting pre-accession-negotiation process to become a member of the EU), again studying and working in parallel (for international organizations / local government and finaly the national advisory board in the youth policy field). Several days ago, the same government - with no sound explanation - STOPPED all activities in the “Youth field”: closed the national Youth office, cancelled all current processes such as drafting Law on Youth, evaluation of the national strategy, building the new strategis framework, etc… not to mention that supporting grasroot youth initiatives was “another plannet” for them… so again, there are “more important” things to be scheduled on the political agenda…
Now, I feel exhausted… I am asking myself is this a time to move on, and reach a third shore (as I have started to build one over the years), and is it going to be any difference?!
What would be the price of the journey, since, apart from being unconditionally supportive along my transitional turbulent trajectory, my parents also shared huge weigth of it… Hope I haven’t made your day to heavy ;)))
Ride safely!!