10 trends in the Belarusian youth sector
The key trends shaping the Belarusian youth sector were identified and formulated during the strategic seminar “A Youth Agenda for Democracy and Human Rights in Belarus.” These trends highlight the priorities, challenges, and opportunities facing young people today, offering a vision for strengthening democracy and human rights in Belarus.
The protest activity of young people has provoked serious repressions by the authorities. This has led to real consequences for many young people, many of whom have been forced to leave the country or suspend their activities. In addition, this crisis has increased fear and distrust. It makes it difficult to organize any public activities and political actions and also limits the opportunities for the development and self-expression of young people.
Trend 1. Audience Gap
Activists based abroad are struggling to remain actual and relevant to their target groups. Activists want more offline work within the country but there are currently no effective, scalable solutions for this. This gap also reflects a decline in understanding and awareness of the needs of the target group and activists express the need for further research on topics such as:
- decolonization as an attempt to remove Russian influence
- monitoring Russian influence on the education system
- social perception of human rights violations and repression as a public problem
- the relevance of the health care trend
- the needs of vulnerable groups
- decrease of political involvement among youth in Belarus
Trend 2. Criminalization of CSO work inside Belarus and institutionalization in EU
Criminalization through forced liquidation of CSOs limits access to target groups, creates fear among activists and contributes to burnout, which most activists have experienced.
Due to new legislation in Belarus there is an additional negative impact on LGBTQI+ initiatives — and now ‘unconventional sexual relations’ are considered as pornography and prosecuted accordingly.
Better training and safety instructions are needed to address this problem. In response to the criminalization of CSO work, politically neutral communities are emerging in the country, where people gather for meetings of various formats, but maintain an emphasis on democratic values.
At the same time Belarusian youth CSOs tend to register abroad — in European countries and they become diaspora organizations. In such situations they still continue to work with Belarusian youth both inside and outside Belarus. The process of institutionalization helps young people to grow capacities and be more consistent in their activities.
Trend 3. Reduction of support and participation programs for Belarusians
The reduction of international support to Belarus, including mobility programs, leads to difficulties in accessing grants from international donor organizations; youth organizations and initiatives lack funding; and duplication of functions between organizations increases competition for funding.
There is a need for more information on grants, improved fundraising and project writing skills.
At a more global level, activists see a decrease in Belarus’ presence on the international agenda and are concerned about the implications of this for a possible transformation/transition in the future.
These problems also affect youth mobility, including academy (scholarships, international recognition of diplomas). Activists see opportunities for advocating for mobility programs in coordination with and through the Joint Transition Cabinet and the Office of Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya.
Trend 4. Belarusization of the sector and Russification inside Belarus
Belarusization, expressed in the transition to the Belarusian language or in more activities aimed at popularizing Belarusian identity and culture, is a very noticeable trend among youth organizations. They freely use the Belarusian language in everyday communication with each other, as well as in communication with their target audience.
At the same time Belarusian regime resists to Belarusization through Russification and prosecution of Belarusian speaking young people. The number of education programs in Belarusian language is already marginal. Youth tends to influence the situation and become agents of changes but very often they face repressions from the regime.
Trend 5. Generation gap in the civil society
New activists are often unaware of the work that has been done before and do not have contact with already established groups. These two trends are interconnected and acutely felt.
On the one hand, organizations that provide infrastructural support or umbrella bodies do not have access to new grassroots activists in the country and cannot support them.
On the other hand, young organizations lack opportunities to learn. This also increases the security risks for young initiatives and leads to repetition, duplication and poor coordination of similar work.
Activists involved in supporting vulnerable groups, youth activism and student rights noted the need for sectoral reflection and better coordination between different initiatives working on the same topic, as new initiatives are not aware of each other.
Trend 6. Ideologizing and militarizing education within the country
The sector does not have effective solutions to address the problem, given the scale and reach of the state education system. Many organizations and activists have shifted their work to non-formal education offline and online and are now working to promote national identity, the Belarusian language and culture, but the reach and scale are incomparable.
The sector also knows little about how this education takes place and what consequences it has. Active work with the youth of the diaspora is one way to work towards preserving national identity. Another is through the creation of entertaining online content, supporting young Belarusian-speaking bloggers, providing knowledge about Belarusian culture and history through gamified, easy-to-use formats.
As a result students tend to go abroad for studies. In recent years the amount of students that choose Russia is increasing and almost reached those who go to Poland. It is happening due to restrictions from EU countries (less scholarships, difficulties with visa and logistics) and also more Russian influence through increased number of scholarships for Belarusian students. It might lead to an increase of supporters of ‘Russian world’ among young people.
Trend 7. Burnout and leaving the sector
Even very young activists admitted to experiencing symptoms of burnout. In the long term, if people’s activism is very short, this will lead to a shortage of personnel and difficulties in transferring institutional knowledge between different generations of activists.
At the same time youth and youth organizations are more aware of the mental health issues and take measures to prevent burn-out. Young people become ambassadors of burnout prevention but not always organisations have opportunities and policies in place to support such initiatives.
Trend 8. Gap between organizations in Belarus and abroad
The deepening gap between domestic organizations and abroad is reflected in the different modes of existence and, accordingly, the different needs of organizations and activists. Working with Belarusian youth at home is a priority, so it is necessary to think about building bridges and permanent platforms so that the youth sector can effectively cooperate and work for democratic change, using the advantages of different geographical locations.
Trend 9. Focus on human rights
Many youth activists and youth organizations recognize the importance of human rights. Some have changed or expanded their focus to include human rights, even if they previously worked on other topics. This shift is in some ways a response to the gross human rights violations after the 2020 protests.
Trend 10. Mediatization of the youth sector and growing AI influence
Due to limited direct access to target groups, many initiatives have increased their presence on social media. The government’s “extremist” assessment of social media and youth CSO channels is also negatively affecting this work. Activists are observing a segmentation of audiences and channels. Large, consolidated audiences are difficult to reach even for professional media. Activists note that Belarusian youth still lack high-quality, attractive, and entertaining content, which threatens an increasing shift toward consuming Russian content.
Young people become ambassadors for Artificial Intelligence usage in life and work. Increasing influence of the trend on young people may have very different consequences simplifying some spheres (digital creativity, work with information) but also complicating or creating obstacles in others like fakes and bot-farms on the internet.
