IN December 2005, the Youth Programme of the Bulgarian Gender Research Foundation completed a series of research on young people's involvement in civil society and in political life in Bulgaria. The studies included a national representative survey, focus-groups, comprehensive interviews of members of youth political organisations, analysis of the contents of articles and interviews of youth leaders in the media, and other studies on the same subject conducted by the research team.

Methodology
The research was conducted at the request of the Bulgarian Gender Research Foundation, by Analytical Creative Group Ltd. from June 10 to 20  2005. The data is representative for the age group 16-30 in   Bulgaria. A sample of 827 people was used, according to the method of semi-standardised face-to- face interviews.
The main aims were to study:

- the involvement of young people in civil society
- views about the role of the State
- the image of non-government organisations as the main mechanism for civic participation.

This sociological survey helped us to go deeper into the attitudes of young people (age group of 16-30 years) in terms of public awareness, and was used for identifying future recommendations, measures and types of campaigns to encourage young people to get involved in public life.

Theoretical approach
The current analysis is based on the following main indicators concerning the civic activity of young people in Bulgaria:

- how active they are in following socio-political processes
- their vision about the role of the State
- their vision about their own role in social life.

Main conclusions
Young people's awareness of public and political processes. Only 16 per cent of all respondents say that they regularly follow information about political and social events in the country. There is a tendency for the percentage of people who regularly look for such information to increase with age (six per cent in the 16-17 age group, 14 per cent in the18-25 age group and 23 per cent in the 26-30 age group). Fifty-eight per cent of all respondents sometimes follow information about public and political issues. For all respondents (93.9 per cent), television is the main source of such information, but to the greatest degree for the representatives of the 26-30 age group (92.7 per cent); 85.4 per cent for the 18-25 age group, decreasing to 73.4 per cent for the youngest respondents (16-17 years).

The other popular sources of information about public events in the country are: family (46.8 per cent), friends (39.1 per cent), newspapers (38.7 per cent), radio (33.3 per cent).

As a whole, the youngest age group discusses public and political events most rarely with the family (35 per cent), with friends (17 per cent) or in school  (17 per cent). The share of people who take part in such discussions again increases with age, exceeding 50 per cent among the 26-30 age group (discussing such topics with friends and family).

The most important social and political problems that worry all young people are:

- Unemployment and the necessity to create new jobs (13.8 per cent)
- Education (10.3per cent)
- Bulgaria's accession to the EU and the wish for the country to have a worthy place in the Union.

Young people's view about the role of the State
There is an unbalanced and inconsistent view about the role of the State in public life on the one hand, and the limits of personal freedoms of individuals in society, on the other hand.

It is a popular belief that the State should not only guarantee that everyone has an income, but that it should also not allow any differences in living standards and make sure that certain values are taught .

At the same time, there is the popular belief that if rules harm    personal interests, their violation is more or less admissible - for example failure to pay the whole amount of social insurance installments or the use of illegal copies of movies and music.

The above-mentioned tendency shows that there is no clear idea of where freedom starts and ends, and the effect of each individual's civil behaviour on everyone's well being. In combination with the above-mentioned understanding of the role of the State, this ambiguity increases frustration from the absence of any concern by the State, the isolation of individuals and the formation of egoistic attitudes ("The State is not taking care of me, I should be looking after myself, why should I be concerned with others?"; "The State is not doing anything to make culture easily accessible, therefore I have the right to download pirate copies of movies from the internet", etc.)

As to the question of what is the most effective way for citizens to influence the decisions made by the government, a total of 43 per cent of the respondents:

- did not answer (31.9 per cent) or
- said such a way did not exist (11.3 per cent).

Of those who did answer the question, the number that named conflictive forms of interaction (strikes, protests, etc) was more than twice the number of those who advocated forms of dialogue with the institutions (meetings, negotiations, etc) - 37 per cent and 14 per cent respectively. This shows that there is a "culture of conflict" - the relations with the State are viewed either as a lost cause or as a conflict, and not as a dialogue or as a potential possibility to solve problems.

Image of non-government organisations among young people 
Respondents' vision of non-government organisations had the following main characteristics:

-Young people engaged in non-government organisations (the 16-30 age group) are about four per cent, including tourist and sports clubs.
-  Most of the young people participating in NGOs are engaged in tourist and sports organisations, environment organisations and organisations for spare time activities, while fewer are engaged in organisations involved in rights-protection activities, civil control or other similar organisations.
- The non-government sector as a whole does not have a clear image.

Neither is there any fully-formed idea of the usefulness of non-government organisations - the term did not mean anything to 40 per cent of the people interviewed and up to a third could not provide an answer as to how many different kinds of NGOs are useful to society.

Some reasons for the unclear image of non-government organisations (based on analysis of young people's opinions expressed in group discussions):

Lack of sufficient information: "Some things are done but the people are not told about it. The people don't know about them. There is no way we could know such organisations exist until we need one."

Young people get any existing information mostly through the media, but the media report mostly on negative events such as cases or suspicions of corruption, scandals "The only ones we know of are those in the news and then it is about negative comments."

"The media have enormous influence and we get the idea of large sums of money, corrupt people … The media distort things more or less. At the same time people don't even know of the existence of some of the organisations."

The image of NGOs is vague, but the young still recognise their functions.

This image is affected by the media and by the immediate experience of the young people in the civil society sector. At theoretical level, the organisations are seen by young people as one of the most effective ways to participate in the decision-making processes and their existence is unanimously considered as necessary. In order to establish a positive image of NGOs, it is necessary to focus on the recognition of two qualities of their activities: efficiency and reliability.

Recommendations to public institutions:

-Increasing the presence of youth issues in the priorities and messages of political parties. This will lead to a greater positive effect if it is done at the level of particular problems - education, professional career, young families, motherhood, information technologies, etc., and not at frame (and abstract) level like adopting the Youth Act for instance, which means nothing to the majority of young people.

-Purposeful activities aimed at improving the unintelligible and stereotyped language of politics.

- Work with the young may begin within their social group, club or community where they are active - turning this into a means for further expansion of the participation at a low cost as well (time, resources, etc.) for the participants.

The Bulgarian Gender Research Foundation is an NGO that promotes social equality and women's human rights in Bulgaria through research, education and advocacy programs. The BGRF was founded in June 1998 in Sofia. The foundation team consists of lawyers, academics, experts in advocacy, education, monitoring violations of human rights, lobbying for legislative changes, preparing publications, networking.