Jutarnji list: “Youth for Youth: Stand Home. I don’t want to be responsible for someone’s death, do you? ”

In the Jutarnji List, an extensive topic entitled »Youth for Youth: Stand Home. I do not want to be responsible for someone’s death, do you want to?” in which journalist Snježana Pavić presented the “Share, Support, Withstand” campaign launched by the Zagreb Child and Youth Protection Center in collaboration with the digital agency “Degordian” and professor Mislav Ante Omazić from the Faculty of Economics and Business in Zagreb on March 31, 2020. The interviewee was a psychologist at our Center, Ella Selak Bagarić:

They think they are omnipotent, that nothing can happen to them. They are impossible, they do not listen to you. They refuse to be obedient. Young people. They behave as we did at their age.

But the facts say that the coronavirus also affects them, albeit in a much smaller percentage, and worse, that they can seriously endanger the health of their loved ones because they can transmit the virus without even knowing they are infected. They definitely don’t want to listen to their parents. But there is someone to listen to, psychologists from the Zagreb Child and Youth Protection Center, led by Gordana Buljan Flander, a professor at the Faculty of Economics, Mislav Ante Omazić, and their friends at the Degordian marketing agency.

Forbidden fruit

They launched a campaign to preserve mental health and support young people in times of isolation, ‘Share, support, withstand’, calling on young people through their social networks to be responsible.

The majority of those who violate safe distance recommendations and the prohibition on assembly are adults. Forbidden fruit is the sweetest, says psychologist Ella Selak Bagaric of the Zagreb Child and Youth Protection Center: parents are reported complaining that until a week ago their teens could not get their children out of the room and away from the internet, and now they are constantly they want to be with friends, they are with their peers in haustors and apartments.

The ban doesn’t work

Adults are likely to be fined. For children and young people, the ban will not work, the psychologist points out, but when they realize that they are doing something right and that it matters, when they see that their role is to help us all.

“The sense of untouchability and the attitude” this can’t happen to me “is typical of teens. But solidarity is also typical, as research shows, they are interconnected and love to help” says psychologist Selak Bagaric. They decided to use that in the campaign.

“The young man has to understand for himself why he has to stay in the house, and best through the example of his peer if he tells him, ‘Please, someone in my family is sick, think about others and stay home.’ “I don’t want to be responsible for someone’s death,” a young man told me last week. Do you want? It is very important that they hear such messages now, understand the gravity of the situation themselves, and motivate each other to endure. Because this is difficult for everyone” warns the psychologist.

Prohibitions don’t help adolescence otherwise, he reiterates. It only works if the adolescent himself understands what is important and why.

“I have been working with children for 10 years and I know how much they will be sacrificed if they see that a peer needs something” explains Selak Bagaric’s approach to youth. Parents won’t listen, but if they hear from their peers that they care about a family member who is at risk, it’s different. So they will accept that it is important for them to be careful about who they are in contact with and not to gather with.

Influencers like Ella Dvornik got involved

You post a type post: What were you doing today? I listened to music, worked mindfulness and learned to cook, and you? And you nominate another to say what he did today. The Share, Support, Withstand campaign is formulated in the form of challenges, challenges, such as an avalanche of snow rolling over social networks: I challenge you to say what you did for yourself today, these days, as we are forced to stay home so that we do not endanger neither ourselves nor others.

“I appeal to young people for great solidarity, because we know they can do it,” says psychologist Ella Selak Bagaric. A number of influencers such as Ella Dvornik, Janko Janic, Paula Sikiric, Marko Vuletic have volunteered for their Instagram campaign.

“In such crises it is shown that the more that closes, the more the heart opens” Selak Bagaric said.

You can get involved! Pick one of the templates you like best and you can have more of them, take a screenshot and post it filled on your Instagram with the hashtags #ostanidoma and #tujednizadruge. In this way you will make yourself aware that you are already doing a lot for yourself and for society, but also to remind others how they can help themselves, remain calm, healthy and positive and keep others safe.

Share the story on your profile, let’s be together #together and overcome this crisis by strengthening mental resilience, communicating positive values that prevent panic and take responsibility because we are not alone and are powerless.

Disclaimer: This is unofficial translation provided for information purposes. Zagreb Child and Youth Protection Center can not be held legally responsible for any translation inaccuracy.