By Emilija Dimitrievski
Generation M Canadian Co-Chair Vele Tosevski opened the meeting and gave the floor over to St. Clement’s first female president Vera Belchevska to greet the young participants. Belchevska pledged that her goal was to get the youth more involved in the community and create long-lasting programs for the youth. She thanked UMD and its program Generation M for its efforts to engage younger generations of Canadian-Macedonians.
UMD President Metodija A. Koloski followed giving an overall presentation about UMD and why Generation M was started. Many topics were discussed throughout this meeting, the main focus being future events for Generation M such as the Toronto Ajvar 5K.
Another important matter discussed was how Macedonian groups or clubs at universities can give Macedonians a voice at their schools and how they can benefit from the UMD Bitove Scholarship and Generation M’s programs like Task Force Macedonia (a youth think tank) and Birthright Macedonia, which was recently launched the Monday following the meeting.
Birthright Macedonia and the University groups, however, are only targeted at young adults over eighteen years old; meaning that the majority of the attendees will be unable to participate because they are not of age yet. This sparked an interesting discussion about how to get the youth that are in high school or late elementary school involved in Generation M.
The younger attendees of the meeting were asked why they do not come to certain events and what their ideal event would be to attract youth that are non-Macedonian. This led to the idea of having themed youth events four times a year with the first one already in planning stages. Stay tuned!
A special Generation M thanks goes out to UMD President Metodija A. Koloski for attending the meeting and for traveling from Washington, D.C. to Toronto for the weekend. Another huge gratitude also goes to St. Clement’s president, Vera Belchevska, and many other members of the church board for attending the meeting and expressing their full support for Generation M.
Overall, the second committee meeting of Generation M was very productive. It was amazing to see that even younger Canadian-Macedonians want to contribute to the Canadian-Macedonian community. There’s no doubt everyone left the meeting feeling a greater part of something powerful.
Generation M encourages all young Macedonians to stay updated on social media (twitter.com/GenMacedonia, facebook.com/GenMacedonia), attend all of its events, and join the movement.