I just came back from Bulgarian Networking Days- an initiative organized by the European Youth Forum that aims to provide Bulgarian Youth NGOs with the support needed so to establish a National Youth Council.

In the near past they have been a couple of attempts to create such organization that should represent the youth in Bulgaria and to work for youth policies but none of the trials has been successful. However, this time it seems to me that everything will work out. And yes, it was a great feeling indeed to spend three days among inspiring young people who cares what`s happening around them and fight to make a positive change and leave a mark.

So if you`re still wondering to join or not some youth NGO, just find the right for you and go. School and university are no longer enough. You need more. The knowledge, the skills, the networking that comes along with an active participation in a youth-led NGO are priceless.

He’s only twenty-two years old and he is already actively involved in the policy decision process on the European level. Bulgarian Rosen Dimov, also known as the youngest consultant in the bureau of European policy advisors with the European Commission, is among the hundred young people that have come to Paris to attend the AER conference on youth employment. He’s also the leader of the Association of Student Organizations in South Eastern Europe, a country coordinator of UNICEF Rural Voices of youth for Bulgaria and network coordinator of the Pays of Lisbon. At the moment he’s doing an academic fellowship in International and EU law in the Netherlands.

Orange: You’ve been actively participating in youth NGOs since you were fourteen years old. What does this give you?

Dimov: It all started with my feeling that I am not doing enough for society. I decided that I should not wait for changes to happen, but seek and create chances to make these changes. At the beginning I joined existing organizations and later on I set up new organizations and started working on my own projects. In general, all of these initiatives gave me an immeasurable amount of knowledge and skills. You make new friends and you create a large network of professional contacts. Most importantly, you see the result of your work, you leave an imprint to the surrounding environment and that’s what matters the most, what gives one self-fulfillment.

Orange: What are the biggest challenges youth face in the transition from school to work and in the context of the current economic crisis?

Dimov: Either in the case of premature or in the case of delayed adulthood, there are insufficient measures at the European national and grassroots level to support the transition of young people and help them acquire all the skills they need to adapt to life, work and family responsibilities. We could use the financial crisis as an opportunity to readjust the existing programs, funding, instruments, policies and make them correspond better to the dynamically changing reality.

Orange: And if you should point out the skills that are particularly important when it comes to youth employment, what would these be?

Dimov: In the first place, a precise self estimation – who am I, what do I want and what do I need in order to get it? After that, a young person should be willing to find the relevant source of information he or she needs, should be eager to participate in different training programs to grab the best job on the market. To do so you need to be proactive as well.

Orange: And what is your idea for a youth partnership on a regional level?

Dimov: Parties of the social dialogue at the regional level, such as government, business leaders, NGOs, trade unions and youth associations, should maintain consistent contact with each other and come up with new solutions to any significant change in the labour market. It is their shared responsibility to make a region more attractive not only for young people from this region but also for other social groups, even going beyond the borders of the regions.  And here regional twinning is a must.

Orange: How do you personally imagine your ideal job?
Dimov: I would like to remain dedicated to the development of my region and link young people with the best they can get from all around their region, no matter how old I am. Even though we may speak of expanding Europe, subsidiarity will be a core principle that young people and regions will be benefiting from.

One of the main reasons we spend years and years studying is the belief that, at the end, the knowledge and skills we acquire at school and university will lead us to a good job afterwards and to fulfilment of our future career goals.

However, nowadays education is one of the most controversial topics on the political and social agenda, as the gap between what is needed and what is offered on the labour market is getting wider every day. Moreover, at the moment twenty per cent of the youth in the EU are unemployed, although most of them do have a good educational background. As a matter of fact today young people are better educated than at any other time in history but unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be enough.

The question which remains is if this percentage, almost twice higher than the total unemployment rate, is a consequence of the current financial and economic crisis or if it is a sign that our education system needs some quick and large reforms in order to reflect the changes that have taken place during the last couple of decades, such as globalization, technological revolutions, organizational changes, even climate change.

Era of unpredictability

What is difficult is finding the right balance and getting to know where to draw the line – what to keep, what to take off, what to add. The main challenge is that we are now living in an era of unpredictability, a time of constant changes, and to forecast what knowledge and skills one will need in the near future is impossible. If you look at the numbers, there’s a prediction that until 2020 there would be 100 million new jobs created and a significant part of them don’t even exist today. So how to prepare for the unknown?

Here comes the role of using both formal and non formal education initiatives and teaching skills that most probably everyone will need at a given point of his or her life – organization skills, team work, analytical thinking, willingness to take responsibility, creativity, problem solving, learning how to learn skills, etc. The education system should change in a way that does not provide only knowledge but also practical skills which helps one to adapt easy to the constant changes that occurs in the environment and to be as flexible as possible in terms of acquiring new knowledge, information and skills needed. That’s what the education system should give students at the first place and which will make the transition from school to university and then to work much easier.

Fundament of success

How could that be achieved? A good point to start is building better links between educational institutions and “real life” (e.g. including internships into the curricula), promoting initiatives like “Europass” so to increase the recognition of non formal education, having soft-skills seminars, etc.

As a conclusion I would like to cite Thomas L. Friedman, author of the international bestseller “The World Is Flat”, who says in his book that “In the future, how we educate our children may prove to be more important than how much we educate them.” Finding the right balance, the right techniques and the right people to educate the youth will ensure we will all enjoy the benefits afterwards. There’s a saying that education is the fundament of Europe’s success and we should make sure that won’t change.

What is your brief definition of climate change?

Climate change is the greatest contemporary challenge of mankind. There are proofs of raise in average temperature levels on all planets in the Solar system due to the increased solar activity. At the same time humankind contributed heavily to the increased speed of this process on planet Earth. We can not control climate change but we could effectively influence it through modernization of technologies, new sources of energy and above all change of thinking. The fight with global warming is related to a new way of living. The faster we adapt the more efficient our positive affect on climate change will be.

What does Europe do regarding climate change and is it enough?

Europe showed itself ready to give global leadership: to tackle climate change, to face up to the challenge of secure, sustainable and competitive energy, and to make the European economy a model for sustainable development in the 21st century. Public opinion has shifted decisively towards the imperative of addressing climate change, to adapting Europe to the new realities of cutting greenhouse gas emissions and developing our renewable, sustainable energy resources. A political consensus has crystallised to put this issue at the heart of the European Union’s political programme: a guiding theme for the Union, central to the Lisbon strategy for growth and jobs, and of primary importance in Europe’s relations with partners worldwide. It won the support of both the European Parliament and the European Council.

During the last years the EU claimed the leading role in global warning fight and stood up to be the moving force behind the decrease in carbon emissions. The maximum levels of greenhouse gas emission imposed by the European Commission in coordination with the Kyoto protocol serves as a fair example. All heads of state agreed upon committing to EC`s goal 20-20-20 i.e. cut of at least 20 % of CO2 emissions, 20% share of renewable energies in the EU energy consumption and increase of the energy efficiency with 20 %  by 2020.

Do you believe in the individual’s power to change the course of climate change in a positive direction?

We the people are the only ones to blame responsibility to whether and in what ways we shall put an end to climate change. No results could be achieved unless every single human on Earth undertakes the effort to reduce greenhouse gases. The combat with global warming will be resolved by global actions implemented locally.

What do you personally do to reduce climate change?

As for my personal stake in the fight against global warming I was the brain behind the Spring air cleaning 2009 initiative. The main idea of the project was to establish an eco-calculator (http://www.vigenin.eu/eco , in Bulgarian) to calculate the burned gases according to the model of car you posses and the amount of trees to be planted in order to justify these gases. The first issue of the initiative took place in four highly polluted Bulgarian cities (Pernik, Haskovo, Yambol and Sofia) in the time frame of a month in the Spring and amounted for more than 500 trees planted by citizens.

The following interview is for everyone interested in a career within an EU institution, and especially for those of you who want to know more about what is to be a political advisor to a MEP (Member of the European Parliament).

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Do you know who’s considered as one of the most important persons sitting next to a MEP? The one who needs to coordinate dozens of task at the same time and doesn’t have right of making mistakes. Nor time to do so.

If you have already been to the parliament, you may have already met this person- a MEP`s Political advisor. Interested in what you need to become one and what the job looks like, I reached Ms Gabriela Dimitrova, a political advisor to a Bulgarian MEP. Before becoming a PA, she has been working as a consultant in European affairs and even before that she had made an internship within the Confederation of British Industries.

Having a Bachelor degree in Modern languages and European Studies from Bath university, England, and then a Master in Contemporary European Politics in a joint program between a French and an English university, besides Bulgarian, she speaks fluently English and French, as well as a bit of Russian and Spanish.

You are working as a PA since December 2007. How your typical day looks like?

It depends from the week. We have committee’s weeks and groups’ weeks which are really stressful, going from one meeting to another, with quite a tight schedule. You need to have looked through those meetings agendas and to know which are the important topics for us, as Bulgarians for instance, and then research them, see at what stage there are, etc. If there are crucial, you may propose some amendments. Then we have also the so called green weeks, which are much more silent and we even have time to read our emails. And we receive hundreds of emails per day.

In a word…?

Well, usually everyday is different and we should be really flexible in order to cope with all of our tasks. Sometimes you could have three reports at the same time, sometimes none. What I mean is that our work is not fixed, but encompasses many and different tasks, which are not constant.

Do you work from 9-5?

Never till 5. It`s too early. We neither work from 9- 5, nor just from the office. Your schedule depends from your boss most of the time.

If you should point out your main task as a PA which will that be?

Constantly reading reports.

Which is the biggest challenge you face in your work?

Writing reports and compromise amendments. But this is also the best part of it.

What kind of skills a PA should have?

You need to manage your time wisely and to know which are your priorities. You need good organization and communication skills, as well as good research skills. And the latter is really important. You also need to handle stress.

Is there someone you could turn for help if you need any?

Yes. Each committee has a main secretariat and I could talk to different political advisors depending on the topic I need some support with.

What do you consider a success at the end of the day?

If it should be related to work, then it would be when an amendment has passed. If it should be related to me personally, to have finished all my work and be able to go home on time.