President of Croatian Democratic Union Youth Melbourne branch Marko Bajer held an interview with the team at the Croatian youth radio program "Cudan Mikrofon" on 92.3FM, on Sunday, June 27 this year. Marko outlined some of the major projects planned by the Melbourne branch of CDU Youth, their desire to sign up as many young Australian-Croatians as possible, and help promote Croatia's rich cultural heritage, music and tourism. Below is a transcript of the interview which took place with presenter Natalie Muse:

With us in the studio tonight is our special guest, president of Mladez HDZ Melbourne branch, Marko Bajer, to talk to us a bit about Mladez HDZ in general, what they are about, who is involved, and what are their future plans and projects.

- Marko, welcome to ‘Cudan Mikrofon’

Good evening Natalie, and to everyone listening out there, thank you for having me on your program.

- Mladez HDZ Melbourne recently held is annual meeting, tell us about that, how it went, and who are the new/old faces of Mladez HDZ in Melbourne?

On the 15th of May this year Mladez HDZ Melbourne held its annual meeting with a number of its members, there were some new faces there, but also some old faces from before. With us was also president of HDZ Australia and New Zealand Rade Buljubasic who, throughout our meeting, gave his thoughts on how Mladez HDZ should operate in the future. That day we chose a new committee of six young people, they are Kristina Barisic as vice president, Marisa Vugdelija our secretary, Mary Dobran vice secretary, Ivana Barisic as treasurer, and myself as president. At our following meeting held about 2 weeks later young Ivana Raspudic joined our committee as well. I’d just like to point out that all of our members are young, energetic and enthusiastic people who are willing to work hard for the Croatian community in which they belong and I believe that with this group that we have in place at the moment, not only will Mladez HDZ Melbourne prosper, but the whole community in general, with the programs and projects that we have planned out for this year and beyond.

- Speaking of projects, what are some of Mladez HDZ’s plans for the future?

Our main priority for the next six months, that is, for the remainder of this year, is to sign up any interested young Croatians who want to become a member of Mladez HDZ and help us in our work for the community. Our projects will mainly focus on promoting Croatian culture, music, tourism and sport. With that in mind, we came up with a number of ideas on how to carry out these projects, and without giving away too much detail, because we are still finalizing last minute details on one of our projects, I can say that we will be focusing on promoting Croatian culture and Croatian folklore at the latter stages of this year. How, and in what way will be revealed in the next couple of months, but for now, that is our main focus. Work on this project has already begun, once everything has been finalized, we will inform the whole Croatian community of what exactly is going to take place, and we hope, and believe, we can get the support of not only the young Croatian community, but the older Croatian community as well.

- Sounds like you have some exciting and most importantly specific plans for the future. As I understand, Mladez HDZ is the youth following of the political party HDZ or Croatian Democratic Union in Croatia. With that in mind, and considering the majority of our youth today are not really interested in politics, how are you going to, say, motivate our youth, and get them to sign up and support Mladez HDZ Melbourne and your work?

Firstly, let me just acknowledge the fact that we are a youth following of a political party, but our work in Melbourne is focused on those areas that I mentioned before, culture, music, tourism and sport. The same goes for Mladez HDZ in Croatia, just to give you some background information on their work, they organize events as well which promote Croatia’s culture and history, and those aspects of their work dominate more than the political aspects. What Mladez HDZ in Melbourne will be doing in regards to the political aspect of our work is using our contacts within HDZ in Australia and HDZ in Croatia to help us with our projects and plans. We could, one time, for instance, organize some special guests to come from Croatia who work in specific areas, such as culture, folklore, tourism etc. to help promote all things Croatian in those areas. So, if anybody is having doubts as to whether or not sign up, please don’t hesitate, we are here to help the Croatian community, to promote Croatia’s values and beliefs amongst the young and the old, and if anyone wants to be a part of that, they are more than welcome to join us.

- Great, so how can someone out there come into contact with Mladez and with you if they want to sign up and become a member?

Well, there are a number of ways they can contact us, by phone, fax, email or via the internet. With that I’d also like to announce another project we have in mind for the near future, and that is to open up a separate website for Mladez HDZ Melbourne where your listeners will be able to find all our contact details and other information related to Mladez HDZ, notices of future events, a forum, etc.

For now, if anybody would like to sign up, they can contact me personally on 9449 1175, or by email on melbourne@mhdz.com.au. We also have set up a special membership form online, that you can fill out and send to us. The online membership form can be found at www.hdzausnz.com which is the official website of HDZ Australia and New Zealand. I'd also like to mention at this point that our HDZ website has been open since January 1 last year and in our first year we recorded over 60,000 visits from Australia and the whole world, so just follow the link at the top of the page that mentions Mladez HDZ Melbourne, fill out the application form and we will contact you once we’ve received all your details. Membership is free, and open to everyone between 15 and 30 years of age.

- Well Marko, we look forward to seeing the new website up and running in the near future, for now, I’d like to thank you once again for being our guest on tonight’s program, and I wish you all the very best of luck, to you and all the Mladez HDZ committee members, in your work and wish you all the best of success in all your future projects and plans.

Thank you Natalie for having me on your program, laku noc!