The IDEA Youth Forum is organized by many dedicated volunteers who want to contribute to a good cause and want to put on a show that will be hard to forget!

The IDEA Youth Forum 2009 is co-organized by International Debate Education Association (IDEA) and Center of Cultivating Dialogue (CCD).

The International Debate Education Association (IDEA) develops, organizes and promotes debate and debate-related activities in communities throughout the world. Established in 1999 to coordinate pilot debate programs initiated by The Open Society Institute, IDEA acts as an independent membership organization of national debate clubs, associations, programs, and individuals who share a common purpose: to promote mutual understanding and democracy globally by supporting discussion and active citizenship locally. Find out more about IDEA!

Debate Program of B&H, later becoming the Center of Cultivating Dialogue (CCD), has been active since 1997. It was implemented as part of Open Society Fund Soros B&H, as non government, non political and non profitable program, which gathers high-school students and teachers regardless of their religion or national/ethnic background. Apart from many successful projects, The Center has organized 17 TV debate competitions “Za i protiv” (“pro and contra”), which included 4000 participants and more than 260 taped debates in the 6 years of its existence. According to the data published by UNICEF in 2002, “Za i protiv” was the highest rated educational TV show in country. In 2003, the TV show also received an award by the organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Find out more about CCD!

Faces of the Youth Forum

We are proud to present the chief staff that will be responsible for making the upcoming Youth Forum lifetime experience. Veronika Vlckova, our Forum Coordinator will be overseeing the work of all organization teams and making sure everyone is working as hard as they can, to make the YF 2009 in Bosnia and Herzegovina hard to forget!The Local Host is the CCD, represented by Sanja, Selma and Amila. Bill Sheffield, Robert Trapp, Jurate Motiejunaite, Ronna Liggett, Kenda Cunningham, Logan Balavijendran, Tamara Bobakova and Amila are on the Curriculum Committee and they are making sure that the curriculum and topics are excellent!