A Volunteer Day to Remember 25 of May

The 20th anniversary of Habitat Macedonia, together with the symbolic remembrance of the former Youth Day, served as an occasion to revive - for at least one day - the tradition of once-popular youth volunteer work. To mark the occasion, a special volunteer day was organized on May 25, 2025.

More than 30 former officials and members of the youth organization of Macedonia and Yugoslavia - which in its time organized numerous youth work actions - gathered at Habitat’s construction site in Veles. They joined efforts in building the 7th residential building, adding 16 new apartments for low-income families.

Among the volunteers were former youth activists who later held significant state and political positions: Vasil Tupurkovski, former member of the Presidency of the SFRY and later Macedonian Deputy Prime Minister; two other former Macedonian Deputy Prime Ministers, Risto Ivanov and Zoran Krstevski; former Speaker of the Macedonian Parliament and Minister of Finance Nikola Popovski; former Members of Macedonian Parliament Angelka Peeva Laurencic and Slobodan Najdovski; Ambassador Jon Ivanovski; mayors Ace Kocevski, Borce Georgievski, and Stevco Jakimovski; as well as former editors of student and youth newspapers Goran Mihajlovski and Zoran Dimitrovski, the latter currently serving as Macedonian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Hosts of the event were Tetjana Lazarevska, President of the Assembly of Habitat Macedonia; Dragan Malinovski, Chair of its Governing Board; and Zoran Kostov, Executive Director - all three of them also former youth activists and officials.

Youth work actions were a popular form of engaging young people, especially in the decades after World War II, when public infrastructure, roads, railways, and industrial facilities were being built. The guests who marked Habitat Macedonia’s anniversary in this way joined hundreds of volunteers from around the world - mostly from the United States - who have participated over the past decade in the construction of Habitat’s housing settlement in Veles.