This spring, IFLRY, the International Federation of Liberal Youth, held its 45th General Assembly in Sofia, Bulgaria. The Liberal Youth Foundation (LYF) was pleased to support the attendance of a young activist from Belarus and the IFLRY member organisation Civil Forum. Ihar, Vice-chairman of Civil Forum, represented the organisation. This was the first time Civil Forum was present at an IFLRY General Assembly since 2012.
What does it mean for Civil Forum to be able to attend the IFLRY GA?
For Civil Forum to be able to attend the IFLRY GA was the great possibility to see how world youth policy work and to be part of the global liberal youth policy. During the GA, Civil Forum could represent the view of Belarusian liberal society about the interesting cases which was discussed in Sofia, such as environmental protection, independence of Catalonia and more.
It was especially interesting to establish contacts with young liberals from different countries, to tell them about the situation in Belarus and to consider first steps of future cooperation. I think it was great for inspiration for new common projects and efforts on the way of sharing liberal and democratic values.
Which story or stories from your time at the IFLRY GA did you share most upon your return?
I was most impressed with the process of Vice-president’s elections during GA. It was real big politics! Different candidates fought for each vote, presented great programmes and organised very interesting PR-campaigns. It was really difficult for me to give only 4 votes because all of the candidates had done the perfect work! There is no free elections in my native country, and that’s why so interesting for me to see democratic election process during General Assembly. And, of course, to be the part of this process.
How is it to work with youth politics in Belarus?
Unfortunately we have a hard and long way in front of us to repeat best practices from Europe and the world in our country. But we have to begin with small steps on the way. Our mission is to provide liberal values, values of equality and mutual respect among Belarusian youth, and give them the possibility to take part in the different educational events where they can see best practices and success stories of civil society changes. Our members actively participate in a big number of IFLRY events, such as the seminar “Diversity, inclusion and pluralism”, trainings of trainers as well as the work and activities of the Belarus and Ukraine programme. They return back after the seminars with the clear vision of needed changes in the Belarusian society, ideas of new projects and big desire to work.
How can international youth cooperation support your organisation and your cause?
IFLRY is already doing a lot for this. For example, the IFLRY Belarus and Ukraine programme is of really big help for our activists to get new knowledge, skills and practices from IFLRY’s coaches and mentors. It was a great step forward to see the first IFLRY training for trainers in Belarus in the beginning of March 2019. And it was a wonderful experience to help with the organisation of the training.
What about future cooperation?
We hope that international liberal youth society will take active participation in the fight for free and transparent elections in Belarus. We will have 2 election campaigns in 2019 and 2020. And Civil Forum will as always have observation mission. We sincerely welcome our liberal friends from different IFLRY member organisations to cooperate with us in the observation process and to defend honest results.
We are also glad to be the reliable Belarusian partner for IFLRY in each initiative. We have a good generation of Belarusian young liberals and hope that we can create common useful projects on the way of sharing of democratic and liberal values!
Read Ihar’s own blog about the event here.