On April 8, the functional workshop of the World Youth Movement for Democracy (WYMD) was organized in Kyiv in the framework of the Fifth Assembly of the WMD, of which it is a youth wing.

The workshop, moderated by Anastasia Nikitina, head of the WYMD regional secretariat for Central and Eastern Europe and the NIS countries, brought together about 30 participants representing youth democracy groups and the organizations working with youth from all the parts of the world.

It was 4 years ago at the Third Assembly in Durban that the WYMD was institutionalized. Until last year it was managed by the Secretariat based on the Global Youth Action Network (GYAN) Latin American headquarters in Brazil, but was then transferred to the International Youth Human Rights Movement office in Kyiv. This provides a unique opportunity to develop the youth democracy network in the CEE & Eurasia region where it's not very strong up to the moment.
Formerly the Secretariat mainly played the role of facilitating communication and information exchange between WYMD participants and involving new young people into democratic movement. But according to the recent decisions of the Working Committee (the WYMD's steering body) the new Secretariat staff sees its mission in developing the Movement as a network of networks, both topical and regional, which will help to fill it with real activity.

A list of project ideas supposed to be developed either globally or regionally was presented to the participants, who were also invited to share their ideas in working groups and contribute with their proposals on how to make the work of WYMD more effective and develop it as a strong community of activists worldwide.

The key dilemma for WYMD voiced up at the workshop is either to be merely an appendage to the "adult" World Movement (similar to the majority of existing political parties' youth chapters), or to create a new generation of activists with their own agenda that can then be also proposed to the "adult" movement.
The discussion revealed that the participants think that the WYMD must have its own agenda and as a youth movement can be more radical in comparison with the "adult" one. It was also pointed out that the Movement should make wider use of the already existent mechanisms at the regional level where possible.

Speaking about the plans for future activities, the idea of the complex program "Youth for Defending Civil Society" intended to address the issues of persecuting young activists and youth organizations in different countries was announced.

The WYMD regional secretariat for CEE & NIS
wymd@hrworld.ru