"Youth Photo Games" in NoviSad, Serbia by Maria Apap & Ryan Bonnici

The “Youth photo games” project took place between the 1st  and 9th June, 2012 in Novi Sad in Serbia,  It was a project of Youth in Action Program. We have been chosen by MUYA- Malta Unesco Youth Association to participate in this project.


The main aim of the project was to promote voluntarism and Social inclusion and to learn how to do creative photography.
The Training Course “Youth Photo Games“ offered  us new art techniques and learning methods for improving inclusion of excluded groups of youth with psychological problems – mental health problems. Also by promotion youth voluntarism and photo activities, we were able to use those learning methods in everyday work with excluded youth including them in active local community life. 

The Project was held in English Language and 2 participants from 15 different countries between the age of 16 and 35 years of age were eligible to participate. The participating counties were Serbia, Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Germany, Croatia, Italy, Macedonia, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Spain, Turkey and Ukraine. 
The course was funded 100% for food and accommodation and 70% of travel costs by European social fund.

The course consisted of basic knowledge of city and nature photography. We also had a workshop on photobatik, post production of photos and night photography. As part of the project we organised an exhibition in the main gallery of the city.

We had intercultural evenings and a VMO fair in which each country had promotional material from the organisation they represent . On different occasion we  had discussion about human rights and anti discrimination topics. We also  held discussions on how to develop strategies to enhance youth work by art photography, and how to prepare a project proposal for future training.

At the end of training all participants shared contact details, photos and information about different organisations and some countries even invited us for more projects that will be organised next year.