By Jessica Summers

What happens when a team of young people engages with the problems of a nation? We found out on June 5, 2025, at the American University in Bulgaria.

Zarika was lucky enough to attend the final of Y2Y PILLAR (Youth to Youth: Participation and Information Literacy for Leadership, Awareness and Resilience). Y2Y PILLAR challenges students to become proactive agents of democratic participation; to question and discern the deluge of information we are presented with in these times and to spread that engagement and passion throughout society as a whole.

This competition challenged student teams from universities in Albania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kosovo, and North Macedonia to identify a pressing threat to democracy in their societies and develop a powerful and innovative method to address this issue. Only three teams made it to the final at the American University in Bulgaria.

Albania

Crawling Down the Aisle: Breaking the Chains of Early Marriage is an awareness campaign addressing early marriage as a critical barrier to education, gender equality, and democratic participation. This was a moving presentation, clearly a project driven by passion and horror. Key to the presentation’s success were the interviews with women forced into marriages with much older men; some were as young as twelve when their marriages took place.

Bulgaria

мед/MED is an educational initiative that cultivates a new generation of active citizens ready to stand up for democratic values through the gamification of democracy. A particularly impressive insight that the team identified was the thread of democracy that runs through everyday life. Using everyday decisions and dilemmas that we all face, they demystified the democratic process by suggesting that it was only a short step from everyday choices to choosing who will govern.

Kosovo

DemoVox’s aim was to counter the fear and control created by disinformation through social media. They began their presentation dramatically with the words: “A troop of armed Serbians is on our border….we need to fight”. Such ‘news’ items can be shared by anyone in the Information Age, and this chillingly echoed the catastrophic outcomes of earlier conflicts and demonstrated the importance of having the means to assess and address such sweeping statements. They have created an online tool to simplify and clarify rights, laws and also offer reliable sources through a user-friendly, multilingual digital platform.

The PILLAR winner

The passion and drive of each team, who were coached extensively by Tony Sgro and Lily Churran (EdVenture Partners) was apparent. The bravery of the Albanian team in addressing such a sensitive issue was commended by the judges.

However, despite each team bringing their own magic to their chosen topic, Bulgaria stole the show. The simplicity and focus of their intervention, coupled with a highly professional presentation saw them walk away with a first prize of $9,000 to invest in their project. Kosovo received the second prize of $3,000 and Albania, third prize of $1,000.

The impact

Overall, what began as a project of 42 university students in six teams ended up engaging over 1000 high school students and reached over 200,000 people across six countries.

Backed by the America for Bulgaria Foundation, and supported by regional experts & civic leaders, PILLAR is part of CIDC’s mission to turn student ideas into civic action and build a democratic future, one project at a time; and this year’s participants certainly delivered on that mission. The vision and unique perspective that young people hold in our society is a valuable asset, and one it is clear we should be utilising.