The Open Forum 2004  “We Are Young Citizens!”

The first regional open youth public radio forum was held in Samara Region during the period from the 3^rd till the 26^th of March 2004. The Open Forum aimed at civic development of young people (16-30 years old) and assistance in social progress of Samara Region. The project was organized by Radio “Samara Maximum” and Social Movement “Progressive Youth Union of Samara Region”.

Nowadays there are many different cultural, sub-cultural and ideological trends in the social environment of modern youth. Young people are not somehow united but they do have some common problems: How to earn money? Whom to communicate with and how? How to get good higher education? Where to live in? It is obvious that all these and many other problems may be solved by government, business, society and mass media acting together. Progressive Youth Union and Radio “Samara Maximum” decided to unite their potentialities for assistance in solving the problems of many young people and organized the first regional open youth public radio forum “We Are Young Citizens!”.

The Forum’s Purposes: the formulation of urgent problems of young people living in Samara Region and the public discussion of these problems by young people themselves; the stimulation of civic initiative and active social position among youth of the region.

The Forum’s Aims: the independent public monitoring of the problems of young citizens of Samara Region; the organization of a series of radio programs with youth problems as their themes and socially active young people from all the major towns and districts of the region as their participants; enlisting the cooperation of competent experts and everyone willing to discuss these problems in public.

All the data received during the Open Forum monitoring were analyzed by a specially made informational and analytical center; and every Friday the most important and interesting for young people problems were discussed in youth radio program “Rave Time” on the air, with modern dance music background (this radio show became the winner of Regional Youth Mass Media Competition “The Generation Portrait” and announced as “the best youth radio program” in 2003). Students, youth organizations representatives, and already working young people from Samara, Togliatti, Syzran, Novokuybyshevsk, Tchapaevsk, Otradny and Pokhvistnevo participated on the telephone in all the four forum programs. Chairman of Samara Regional Branch of UNO Russian Association Eugenia Kashuba, Associate Professor of Samara State University and Head of the Department of Youth Social Work at International Market Institute in Samara Galina Luks, and Political Correspondent and Social Analyst Dmitry Loboyko were engaged as the forum experts.

The public monitoring of the problems of the young people living in Samara Region showed that among the most important problems for them are: job placement, professional realization, military service and conscription, separate housing and financial independence from parents. Moreover, quite an interesting fact was learned out: young people often do not realize the interdependence of their participation in political life (mostly elections) and their social well-being. The forum key themes were as follows: “Do the government need the opinion of young people?”, “Initiative as a condition of success in modern society”, “How do the young people live in regional provinces? – The outlook out of Samara”, “Do someone need young professionals?”.

«I do believe that young people should more actively participate in social and political life of Samara Region» - declared after the forum came to its end Alexander Andreyev, the forum coordinator and Leader of Progressive Youth Union, - «We do choose our future with our own will. Our ideas and actions determine not only our life but the life of the nearest people and all the society in general. Not to understand it means to be off the public life completely”.