Youth Cultural Association, Prilep A decade dedicated to the young people The Youth Cultural Association (YCA) from Prilep is a non-political, non-governmental and non-for-profit organization of young people who have been actively involved in cultural activities since 1997. Its mission is to promote the culture and engage the young people from the town in cultural activities, cherish the cultural tradition and raise the general culture of living. Its vision is to grow into a regional promoter of the European cultural values. In the last ten years, the association has organized and implemented a number of educational projects, tribunes, lectures, theater shows, musical, entertaining and sports events, literary meetings, eco-actions, promotions of European values, etc. There is great enthusiasm and desire to work in the field of cultural development among its members who are all highly educated young people, university and high-school students, ready for the challenges of the modern life and for applying the European cultural values in our environment. They cooperate and communicate on local and national level with individuals and institutions whose focus of interests are the interests of the young people. In the last decade, YCA has acted in the direction of developing the civil society through interactive cooperation with individuals and institutions from the civil sector, the business-sector, the media, the local and national authorities. It participated actively in the preparation of the Local Environmental Action Plan (LEAP) and the Youth Local Action Plan (YLAP), as well as in the opening of the HIV/AIDS counseling center at the Health Institute in Prilep. The members have also realized the theater shows “Cinderella”, “Jovance and Marika”, “The Small Princess”, “The Magic Flute”, then, the National Youth Poetry Festival and other summer cultural events. The projects like “Watch behind you”, “Let’s learn about our health”, “Stop to diseases of addiction” and “The young people for themselves”, addressed issues on environmental protection, health care, making youth policies, eradicating the diseases of addiction among young people, etc. Nowadays, they are working on a project called “For a healthy youth”, whose goal is to animate and educate 120 high-school students from Prilep and Krusevo.   G. Sh.