ORGANIZED IMPLEMENTATION OF FREE TIME OF YOUTH: PROMOTION OF CULTURAL ACTIVITIES

Free time of an individual encompasses the ability to use time outside the scope of obligations and existential issues. Free time represents the ability to express and disclose the areas of interest and personality development. For young people, it represents an important period of life through which they need to be activated in productive programs that are offered within the educational process but also outside these same frameworks. In order to stimulate young people to create and participate in the provision of quality free time, important changes have to be done within the structure of the institutions themselves, and the improvement of communication between their work and the needs of the youth. The paper is focused on organized free time of youth that represents an ideal relationship in the role of mediators and creators of leisure time and the intersection of ideas, cooperation and youth development in society and the community. Openness towards youth brings new ideas that interest them and provides them with the opportunity to become the creators of their own ideas with the help of free time program leaders such as educational institutions, associations and others. A total of 103 respondents from 27 countries, mostly from the Republic of Croatia, participated in the research. The aim of the research is to gain insight into respondents’ free time, activities which we imply under free time and their inclusion and reasons for participating in free time activities. Given the fact that organized participation in free time activities does not only include individuals of younger age, e.g. 30 year-olds, but also other age groups, the research is expanded and encompasses age groups: 17-25 years, 26-35 years and 36 years and older.