2-3 December, Ljubljana
From 2-3 December YHO held a Youth Pre-Event in Ljubljana, Slovenia to gather youth messages for the High-level Meeting on Strengthening the Healthcare Systems in SEE on the topic of Building Trust and Transforming Health Systems for a Sustainable Future.
For the Youth Pre-Event YHO brought together young people from South Eastern European countries from different backgrounds in order to gather views and proposals of young individuals for experts and policymakers at future meetings focused on the topic of primary health care.
The first day began with participant registration and lively discussions during lunch at Impact Hub. Dr. Vesna Kerstin Petrič initiated the intense two-day event with an opening address, emphasizing the importance of the youth voices. She encouraged us to focus on concrete problems our generation faces, speaking about them clearly and sincerely, using our own language rather than the language of experts. Through interactive and well-structured workshops led by youth work expert Manca Kozlovič, we delved deeper into the discussed topics. Initially, we identified issues related to primary healthcare in individual countries, selecting 6 significant recurring themes for more in-depth consideration and discussion in groups. After the conclusion of the first day’s program, discussions continued over dinner and during an evening stroll through snowy Ljubljana.
The next step involved shaping the document’s concept, with smaller groups supplementing it with insights from the previous day. The central themes of the document include health awareness; preventive medicine, well-being and lifestyle; mental health; health accessibility and availability; healthcare workforce. The final document can be found here.
In the evening, we traveled by bus to Brdo pri Kranju for the High-level Meeting on Strengthening the Healthcare Systems in South-Eastern Europe. The recommendations and calls to action prepared at the Youth Pre-Event were presented by YHO Vice-President Sanja Šišović at the roundtable discussion on the first day of the High-Level meeting. Young people at the meeting were able to ask questions and discuss solutions with official representatives of their countries.
The event enriched our experience by letting us hear different points of view and connecting with other young people from the SEE region who care a lot about the future of health and healthcare. We hope to see the event’s influence in the decisions of policymakers and in our own efforts to make a positive impact.
