Youth Democracy Festival

The main objective of Youth Festival is to provide not only to provide opportunity to NGOs, private companies, government institutions and other organizations a platform to demonstrate and explain their services & commitment to youth and development also to provide a unique opportunity to youth to experience and expose themselves in various trainings, interactive activities, competitions as well as other entertaining activities.

Besides, the exhibition on the local products and services several interactive activities are conducted during the event through workshops, trainings, opportunities on scholarship, employment and so on. Through these activities youth in each target provinces will be able to learn and experiences new things and will be able to bring back home with knowledge and understanding on different issues that may interest them.

Winners of the Song competition perform on the big stage

The Democracy Youth Festival was designed by the IRI in cooperation with YCC and funded by United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The 9th Youth Festival was held in Siem Reap province from 19th to 27th of June, 2010 and was attended by 70 000 people. The main organizers of the event decided that they would change the format of the event this year, with a series of trainings and competitions being conducted during the festival at Pannasatra University of Cambodia (PUC) and Build Bright University in Siem Reap. There were a range of topics and issues that the training sessions dealt with a number of issues which included; youth and information technology, public opinion surveys, debating, forming petitions, matching grant proposals, Commune Council participation, blog workshops, tour guide skills, as well as finding job opportunities and scholarships. There were also competitions related to most of the training sessions, which provided further incentive for active participation. YCC found that the new format of the festival was more successful then previous ones due to the orientation component of the training sessions. These orientations gave participants a chance to find out about specific topics before signing up for the training. This meant that participants had a clearer idea about which training suited their learning needs. There were approximately 1,100 participants from several universities and high schools who attended 30 trainings on the various topics.