How chewing gum made its mark on history
Howard Williamson
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
One of the very first pieces I wrote for Young People Now back in 2003, but which remained unpublished, was called 'One Half Piece of Chewing Gum'.
The story related to events that occurred at the end of 2001, when the former Yugoslavia was in a state of flux. I attended a European training conference and it was here that a young woman shared her last piece of chewing gum with me. We never spoke but I discovered she was from Yugoslavia. I wrote and thanked her. She wrote back, telling me about her work with a youth non-governmental organisation (NGO) and explained how difficult it was to have any dialogue with government officials.
I had once taught a Yugoslavian ministry official and so decided to link the two of them up. I thought it would simply produce a courteous, but brief, encounter. Instead, it laid the foundations for thinking about youth policy in those new territories.
My point, in 2003, was that sometimes it is chance contact and personal relationships, rather than structures and formal procedures, that oil the wheels of youth policy development. Subsequently, I went to Belgrade (now Serbia's capital) a couple of times. My third and most recent visit was earlier this month. It was to attend a national conference in the grand Palace of Serbia, organised jointly by the new Ministry of Youth and Sports for the Republic of Serbia (formed in May) and a prominent NGO.
The purpose of the event was to discuss both the principles of youth policy (based on internal research that analysed local youth action plans in Serbia) and the framework that is to inform Serbia's strategic plan for youth. That framework has eight elements, including education, training and the labour market, health, leisure time, youth participation, and the environment. It is a relatively simple framework with some straightforward objectives, namely to enable Serbian young people to re-establish a more positive orientation towards their own country and their futures (there is huge despondency among young people there). This will, it is hoped, encourage young people to stay in Serbia and, for those who leave, to create the conditions that may bring them back. This is not so different an agenda from the one discussed less formally six years ago.
The ministry official I knew in 2001 did not attend the conference. However, she did join us for the official meal that evening and I sat between her and the young woman who had given me her chewing gum. Six years on, the story continues to be told.
- Howard Williamson is professor of European youth policy at the University of Glamorgan, and a member of the Youth Justice Board. Email howard.williamson@haymarket.com.
