{"id":2250,"date":"2025-09-01T19:39:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T19:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/btbalkans.org\/?post_type=project&#038;p=2250"},"modified":"2026-08-10T19:41:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T19:41:07","slug":"nextgen-balkans","status":"publish","type":"project","link":"https:\/\/btbalkans.org\/index.php\/project\/nextgen-balkans\/","title":{"rendered":"NextGen Balkans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Bringing together young people from <strong>Greece and Kosovo<\/strong>, <em>NextGen Balkans: Youth Cooperation Series<\/em> creates a space to explore shared challenges, exchange perspectives and develop ideas for positive change. Jointly designed and implemented by <strong>Balkan Youth Cooperation and Building the Balkans<\/strong>, the programme promotes intercultural learning, dialogue and meaningful youth cooperation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Across four thematic sessions, participants explore <strong>youth participation and democracy, digital skills and innovation, gender equality and youth empowerment, and climate action and environmental awareness<\/strong>. Each session combines expert and youth organisation contributions with interactive workshops, encouraging participants to reflect on challenges affecting their communities and explore practical responses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The programme culminates in a <strong>Youth Lab<\/strong>, bringing together the different themes through an intensive co-creation process. Working in mixed teams from Greece and Kosovo, participants identify shared challenges, define target groups and develop structured proposals for youth-led initiatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Youth Lab resulted in two key concepts: the <strong>Future-Ready Youth Employment Initiative<\/strong>, which combines a digital skills and career-readiness platform with an annual career summit, and the <strong>Cultural Heritage Dialogue Seminar<\/strong>, a proposed cross-border programme using dialogue, workshops and field visits to explore shared and contested cultural heritage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By moving from <strong>discussion to action and initiative design<\/strong>, <em>NextGen Balkans<\/em> strengthens participants\u2019 communication, teamwork, critical thinking and problem-solving skills while creating meaningful connections between young people from Greece and Kosovo. The programme also lays the groundwork for future joint projects, continued youth engagement and stronger regional cooperation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1728,"template":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btbalkans.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project\/2250"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/btbalkans.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/btbalkans.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/project"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btbalkans.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btbalkans.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}