From September 23rd to 26th, we had the opportunity to attend the meeting of the Western Balkans Initiative (WBI). This initiative is supported by YMCA Europe, The YMCA of the USA and YMCA Germany to the YMCAs in Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania and Serbia.

The meeting, organized by YMCA Serbia in Novi Sad, focused on sustainability, with a relevant agenda that covered the following main topics:

• • Showcase of YMCA Serbia programs and development

• • Progress report for 2023: Serbia, Macedonia and Kosovo

• • Current work plan for the YMCA region (measuring impact)

• • Review of success stories and challenges from Bulgaria, Italy, Romania and Kosovo in property management

• • Best practices from YMCA Germany running hostels

• • Comprehensive fundraising for capital investments

• • EU and Erasmus+ funding opportunities

The meeting is a follow-up on the previous West Balkans meetings in extended format with guests from YMCAs from Bulgaria, Romania and Italy. Hybrid sessions were attended by representatives of YMCA USA and YMCA Germany. This partnership highlights the importance of shared goals and collaboration between YMCAs, regardless of location, in fostering impactful work across Europe.

The progress of the WBI Action Plan 2023-2025, created to enable the appropriate growth of YMCAs from the Western Balkans, was presented. The action plan aims to improve the situation in 3 key areas: youth programs (improve program quality, reach more young people), good governance (improve governance, structures, transparency, financial discipline and establish good conduct policies) and self-sustainability (build meaningful partnerships, income generation programs, fundraising strategies and secure capital investments as a strategic goal for sustainability).

This event was a great opportunity to bring together colleagues from different YMCAs to share, learn from each other, dream, be inspired, ask tough questions, share challenges and together build bridges of hope, cooperation and fellowship.

A big thank you to YMCA Serbia for the incredible hospitality in the beautiful city of Novi Sad!