Fostering a Culture of Participation: Mainstreaming Local Youth Councils in Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

Fostering a Culture of Participation: Mainstreaming Local Youth Councils in Europe

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy)

Project Summary

Participation for all citizens is enshrined as a fundamental right in the Treaty on the European Union where it is stated that “every citizen shall have the right to participate in the democratic life of the Union. Decisions shall be taken as openly and as closely as possible to the citizen”. There is, however, a big gap in the participation of young people and the structures and bodies that are meant to represent them. Unlike the theory that young people are not motivated and involved, young people are engaging in new and innovative ways that are not always fully understood by their elected representatives. This gap is recognized in the EU Youth Goal nº 9 mentioning that “young people are underrepresented in decision-making processes which affect them although their engagement is crucial to democracy”. And more than underrepresentation, it is important to understand that participation is about sharing and redistributing power and that even in the structures and mechanisms where youngsters are present, their voice, engagement, and decisions are often not accounted for. The Youth Goal n°9 is moreover the protagonist of the upcoming Youth Dialogue led by the German presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Local Youth Councils are widely recognized as great instruments to combat the tendency local governments might have to decide for and instead of youngsters, but they too can be improved in order to, following Hart’s model, avoid manipulation and tokenization of youth participation.
Local Youth Councils have two main dimensions: one is pedagogical and the other is civic and democratic. For many youngsters, local youth councils are the first contact with more formal democratic means. It is through and during their participation in these councils that they are “learning to participate”. It is important hence not to disappoint the young people taking part (by tokenizing them or manipulating their voices, not following through with what they decided…), but also to encourage them and make them believe in the democratic process, which can they have multiplier effects on their peers. We believe that decision-making processes and structures should be appealing, inclusive, and provide meaningful participation for the young people involved in them.

AIM AND OBJECTIVES:
In line with the European documents mentioned, this project aims to strengthen young people’s democratic participation at the local and regional levels by improving upon existing local youth councils processes and practices.

The project sets the following objectives:
– Map current practices and structures of Local Youth Councils in the participating countries in order to extract key learnings in order to improve the existing structures;
– Develop competences of the stakeholders involved in the Local Youth Councils;
– Raise awareness and improve the knowledge of the pedagogical and civic purpose of Local Youth Council in the democratic education of youth;
– Foster the quality, impact, reach and evaluation processes of Local Youth Councils, as standards for youth participation in the decision-making process;
– Advocate and mainstream the development of Local Youth Councils in Europe as crucial instruments of youth participation.

We also aim to pursue several tangible and intangible results during and after our project implementation such as:

Tangible Outcomes:
– Document mapping of different existing structures of Local Youth Councils in participating countries;
– Improved capacity of youth workers and municipality representatives to implement local youth councils as mechanisms of youth participation in decision-making processes
– Creation of guidelines for sustainable, inclusive and participatory local youth council created from the analysis of different models of Local Youth Councils and composed by quality indicators and real-life examples of existing local youth councils;
– Report of project activities (Training Course and local activities implemented);
– Visibility and dissemination of project products (no. of downloads and page visits, no. of participants in the activities, no. of applications received, etc.).

The project will start in February 2021, directly involving around 50 participants and last for 18 months. They will be mapping directly best practices from Youth Council and they will also be involved in the evaluation, monitoring and dissemination of the results of the project, as well as its follow-up.
The main project activities will be:
– 1 Training course on “Quality assurance in Local Youth Councils”
– 2 Transnational partners’ meetings

The project partners expect that the project has a European-wide impact in supporting the creation and/or improvement of local youth councils around Europe; in building a strong network of local public bodies and civil society organizations advocating for this instrument of local democracy. and disseminating local youth councils through the good practices collected and than published.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 59176 Eur

Project Coordinator

Carrefour Régional et Communautaire de la Citoyenneté et de la Démocratie asbl & Country: BE

Project Partners

• Mladinski svet Ajdovscina
• DYPALL NETWORK: ASSOCIACAO PARA O DESENVOLVIMENTO DA PARTICIPACAO CIDADA
• KRAPINSKO-ZAGORSKA ZUPANIJA
• Comune di Collegno