topic of the month
Happy 15 th Birthday, VCS
Home of Volunteering
Interview with Nikola Stankoski,
director of Volunteers Centre Skopje
W
hen he left for a one-year stay in Lithuania in the summer of 2004 through the European Voluntary Service (EVS) program, 19-year-old Nikola Stankoski probably could not have imagined that it would change his life forever. The desire to discover something new, the inspiration to enable participation in European Programs for nonformal learning of young people from Macedonia, as well as the availability of opportunities to expand personal horizons, lead to the establishment of Volunteers Centre Skopje immediately after his return to the country in 2005. Fifteen years later, VCS is one of the leading NGO’s in Macedonia when it comes to youth exchange, volunteerism, activism, a recognizable brand and a trusted partner, through which over 10,000 domestic and foreign volunteers and youth activists have passed.
5th of December International Volunteer Day, marks the 15th anniversary of VCS. That is the date when the idea of VCS was born, although it was formally registered on March 15, 2006.
4 - VOICES
“Probably crucial for the formation of VCS was my volunteering stay at the Center of Youth Voluntary Activities Deineta on various projects, but the emphasis was on the Red Cross Center for Emigration and resocialization of refugees in the Lithuanian village of Rukla, where there was people of different ages, mostly from Chechnya, Iraq and Iran. I was leaded by the desire to move forward, to break the frustrations of living in a ‘third world’ country. It was 2004, the European borders for the Macedonian citizens were not open yet, and Lithuania had just become part of the European Union. I expected to see a different world than the one I knew. And I saw, but also a double effect happened to me, because in the center I met people who came from much worse places, with more difficult destinies and sadder stories, who put their lives in a bag and set off in the hope of a better tomorrow. What I saw every day helped me mature as a person and realize that I want to help young people in Macedonia to progress, to get out of the apathy they feel, to go abroad, to strengthen their sense of belonging, to return and “to change things around them,” says Stankoski.
