Youth Parliament Raising awareness of Youth about Sava River
The 12th Sava Youth Parliament, held on 11th-12th October, 2024 in Slavonski Brod (HR) gathered about 45 young participants from Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. It was organized by the International Sava River Basin Commission and supported by the World Bank.
This year, the theme of the Sava Youth Parliament was navigation, with the slogan “Let’s navigate into a green future!”. The aim was to increase the awareness of people, especially younger generations, about all the advantages, potentials and conditions for the development and greater use of inland navigation, as well as the negative impacts of navigation. The intention was to encourage young people to think about the necessity of cooperation between various sectors in river management and to hear their opinions and ideas about how to strike a balance between strengthening inland waterway transport and river conservation.
Preparation for the event started with a competition for secondary school students and youth aged 18-25, in the period March – May 2024. All received works were presented in the frame of marking the Sava Day 2024, on June 1, 2024. Thereafter, the best 9 applications were selected, and 9 teams were invited to attend the 2-days event.
On the first day Mr. Krunoslav Sopček, the Deputy Secretary for Navigation in the ISRBC, gave a warm welcome address to the participants. As the previous President of the Sava Youth Parliament, Blaž Lipovšek, was not able to attend the event in person, he had recorded a video message and informed participants about all activities within the past year.
In the afternoon participants visited the Port and the Port Authority Slavonski Brod, where a representative of the Port Master’s Office presented the River Information Services (RIS).
After the sighteeing tour of Slavonski Brod, the election of new presidency was held in evening. We had 10 highly motivated candidates who introduced themselves to members and presented their vision for the Sava Youth Parliament. We are proud to announce that the members of the new presidency are Filip Gabriel Grosicki – president (HR), Milica Borković (BA), Jovan Vujičić (RS) and Nejc Vrtačnik (SI). After the intense elections, we had some fun games that were all related to navigation. Participants were trained how to properly put on a life jackets and they mastered several most useful knots.
On the second day, participants presented their creative works from the competition, showing their interest in the field of navigation and offering some impressive and inovative solutions. Afterwards we had a very passionate debate „The development of river navigation – YES or NO?“, that rised many questions, dilemmas and different views.
The 12th Sava Youth Parliament has increased the knowledge and understanding of the young people in regard to navigation, which is very important as the transport by inland waterways is one of the most environmentally friendly modes of transport and can significantly contribute to a sustainable transport system by reducing road congestion and pollution.
Here is a video of the 12th Sava Youth Parliament, made by Roko Šarić from Sesvete and agenda of the event is available here.
The selected works are available here:
X. gimnazija Ivan Supek, Zagreb (HR)
Gimnazija Sesvete, Zagreb (HR)
Secondary Vocational and Technical School Gradiška (BA)
Secondary School Ivan Goran Kovačić, Kiseljak (BA)
Palanačka gimnazija, Smederevska Palanka (RS)
Gimnazija Crnjanski, Belgrade (RS)
Category age 18-25, Sesvete (HR)
