The Gardener, Green Pioneers and Youth from Family Diversity win 2026 Youth Participation Awards

Andrej Rajatoski — best known online as “the Gardener” — together with the associations Youth from Family Diversity and Green Pioneers were announced as winners of the 2026 Youth Participation Awards. The ceremony took place yesterday on the occasion of International Youth Day.

The awards recognise young people, youth organisations and individual initiatives that have helped to bring positive change to their communities through activity, creativity and civic engagement. The event was organised by UNDP in partnership with the National Youth Council of Macedonia (NYS), the OSCE Mission in Skopje and the Ministry of Social Policy, Demography and Youth.

Winners and why they were chosen

Rajatoski received the individual Youth Participation Award for 2026 in a category focused this year on youth and safety. An economist by training, Rajatoski made a public name for himself as “the Gardener” — clearing overgrown grass, shrubs and litter from streets, pavements and parts of parks in the capital with visible enthusiasm.

Organisers explained the category recognises "young people who contribute to violence prevention, build bridges between communities and create safer, more cohesive and resilient communities."

In the youth organisations category the prize went to Youth from Family Diversity for their work with young people from a range of family backgrounds, providing psychosocial and legal support, raising awareness and fighting discrimination to promote a more inclusive society. The informal youth group Green Pioneers from Bitola won in the category for informal youth groups for their textile and waste-reuse and recycling projects “Eco Roze” and “Eco Via”. Organisers said their activities reached more than 450 young people during 2025 and 2026.

A new prize this year — Partner of Youth, in the category Youth Officers — honoured the role of professionals who build "a bridge between young people and institutions" and help turn ideas into policies and practical actions. The award went to Vladimir Smilevski, youth officer in the Municipality of Veles.

Delivering remarks at the ceremony, Minister Gjoko Velkovski stressed that young people should be understood not only as the society’s future but as an important and active part of it today. He said: "When we listen to young people, we create better policies. When we include them in decision-making processes, we make higher-quality decisions. And when we invest in them, we invest in the future of the whole society."

The National Youth Council of Macedonia noted that despite an existing legal framework and mechanisms for youth participation, the challenge remains to move from formal towards meaningful participation. Ivona Kuzmanovska, president of the Council, said: "Not only to tell young people that we listen to them, but for that to be visible in the decisions, policies, opportunities and budgets we create."

The OSCE deputy head in Skopje, Suzan Penksa, emphasised that young people are not passive bystanders but indispensable partners in advancing peace and security, and that institutions share responsibility to create open, safe and inclusive mechanisms for their meaningful inclusion and participation.

Organisers also pointed to delays in local implementation of the 2020 Law on Youth. The law obliged every municipality to establish and support a youth centre with 50–70 percent of its budget within five years of the law coming into force; that deadline expired in January 2025. So far youth centres exist in only 13 of the country’s 80 municipalities. A national youth assembly and a national advisory body on youth policy have not yet been formed, and local youth councils operate in just 24 municipalities (29.63 percent), a drop of 4.94 percentage points (four municipalities) compared with the start of 2024, the NYS analysis showed.

Photo: Министерство за социјална политика, демографија и млади