From 5 to 7 December a meeting of the National Network of Youth Centers was held, in which youth centers from Burgas, Vratsa Gabrovo, Dobrich, Montana, Pernik, Plovdiv and Stara Zagora took part, as well as representatives of the Local Development, Poverty Reduction and enhanced inclusion of vulnerable groups.

After an overview of all the implemented activities and initiatives of the 8 centers in 2022, we looked to the new 2023. We discussed the mission and vision for the development of the Network, as well as defined some goals for the future. In the last session of the program, elections were also held for a new chairman of the network within 2023, and so after anonymous voting among a total of 16 representatives from the 8 centers, the Youth Centre Plovdiv was elected. Thank you for the trust and the challenge!

NNYC was established in 2016 by signing a cooperation agreement between the managers of the first four built youth centers in Bulgaria - Vratsa, Dobrich, Plovdiv and Stara Zagora. The main goal of the network is to advocate for the recognition of youth work in Bulgaria, as well as to work for the establishment of a single quality standard, through the implementation of pre-planned and coordinated activities. In 2022, the teams of the new 4 youth centers in the cities of Burgas, Gabrovo, Montana and Pernik began to be increasingly actively involved in the activities of the network.

In 2022, several events were held at the national and international level between the centers, hosted by Youth Centre Plovdiv: Seminar for organizations working with vulnerable groups, International Youth Festival Act and Impact, International Youth Exchange with the Centers that created the digital program - media literacy Youth (re)act and our partners from the PIK Foundation and Norsensus Mediaforum.

During the year, events and initiatives of the other 7 centers united us as well, such as the Conference "Under the many guises of youth work" in the city of Pernik, Exchange in the city of Dobrich with the youth centers on the topic "Challenges for youth work", Summer Academy at IYC Burgas, Youth exchange in Stara Zagora from Norway and many others.

December is a month for taking stock, sifting through good practices and planning for the coming year. Together we will accomplish much more!

The activity is realized as part of the project "Youth Centre Plovdiv - a powerful factor for local development" under the program "Local Development, Poverty Reduction and Enhanced Inclusion of Vulnerable Groups, financed by the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area 2014-2021.