Our Democracy Our Neighborhood – A testimony!

At first, I didn’t understand the point of the café jeunesse, the topic seemed to be very theoretical and far from the youth interest. I didn’t know anyone but the facilitator who invited me to check the event, it was a Sunday morning and I wasn’t very excited to do it but my curiosity pushed me to go. In the beginning, everything seemed to be strange. No one before neither thought about asking me about my opinion concerning the local services nor checked whether I was interested in getting involved in the development of my region. It’s true that my attachment to my neighborhood is strong, as it is what I call home. It is the environment where I grow up and the exciting thing is that I am meeting people who share the same feelings about it. I felt comfortable to talk about the issues and the problems in my neighborhood and share my thoughts about what we can do to help change things to the better. The MEPI project team was very kind and they were working together in a very organized and efficient way. Besides they seemed like good friends, who helped make me end the other participants feel comfortable to express our views in a friendly and cool atmosphere. There was an expert who participated in our debate and who seemed to understand perfectly our concern, refuting none of them and replying with knowledgeable information and an easygoing attitude to our queries.

There was also a spontaneous humoristic show performed by two young men, they made us laugh about our problems as they were imitating celebrities in a funny way.

I find it stunning although I was completely disinterested with the event at first than at the end of it, I didn’t want to leave the new friends I met in the café jeunesse as well as the neighbors I discovered and got to know more. I wanted to say more and express all what has been in my mind for a long time. Gladly, I am committed to continue along with this project in the series of workshops that will be held and I recommend it for all my friends and neighbors to attend them.