6 Country Reports on Youth Work - Jugendpolitik in Europa

Table 58: Youth work activities in Romanian municipalities
Type of activity %
Recreation/leisure-time
activities
34 17
Youth centres 7 3
Cultural youth work 30 15
Extracurricular youth education 61 30
Youth information 53 26
Sports 13 6
Social services 2 1
Other 3 1
Total 203 100%
One of the activities provided, youth information, is most often put into practice in the form of
central information campaigns on the dangers of drug use or on sex education, political
activities, voting and election issues, political representation, violence in society, school
issues, domestic problems, gender-based violence etc. There are a significant number of
recreational and leisure-time activities for young people, for instance music concerts, music
contests, folk dance, dances, camps, winter and summer trips, trekking. Seminars, training
for project management, youth policies and funding opportunities and job-seeking represent
another category well developed in Romanian youth work. These activities provide
opportunities for young people to meet, to exchange skills, to have access to non-formal
training opportunities and to information. Unfortunately, sports are not so present. One
explanation for this could be that sports in Romania are managed by a specific authority and
that sports activities are counted, supervised and funded by institutions that were not the
subject of the present research.
Youth work financed and planned by state institutions – the County Youth Departments –
represents the most significant part of youth activities within the counties surveyed. This
does not mean that non-governmental organisations carrying out these activities cannot
apply for funds. With the Youth (Information) Centres, the National Authority for Youth is
trying to also reach the rural communities where youth is not well organised or where there
are very few youth organisations or non-governmental organisations. In this regard, the fact
that two of the three existing youth centres in Cluj County are located in rural areas is a big
step forwards.
In the four counties we surveyed 135 non-governmental associations. Most of them (42,
31%) are youth associations, and students organisations are also numerous (34, 25%).
Unfortunately no information was available on the number of members in these
organisations, and the only activities that could be traced were those financed with NAY
funds. Most of these associations are located in the main city of the county, but some of their
activities take place in remote areas. Volunteers organisations have started to gain terrain.
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