Young citizens in action: seven examples of decision-making and democratic participation

Young People and Decision-Making

In an attempt to enable meaningful dialogue between school students and policymakers, a group of European NGOs launched Generation d-Liberation. The initiative aims to promote school deliberations and present young people’s suggestions to MEPs and other administrators. Its assembly toolkit can help schools to facilitate civil discourse: it can be used by classes or large groups of up to 40 people, or even just by a handful of students who want to discuss something together.

Meanwhile, in the Erasmus+ project Student Voice – the BRIDGE to Learning, students collaborated with their teachers to shape the curriculum as well as the whole-school and classroom culture. The project defined student voice as students’ “right to express their views in matters affecting them and have their opinions given due weight commensurate with age and maturity” – and student voice in this sense was strengthened through various initiatives. BRIDGE produced a number of resources that can be instructive for other schools: a toolbox, a set of models for working in partnership with students, and continuous professional development activities.

Another relevant concept in this context is participatory budgeting, which originated in Brazil in the 1980s, and which allows citizens to help decide how public money should be spent. The project Com’ON Europe has adapted this budgeting approach for youth-related projects in Europe, by publishing a call every year and organising public voting to decide which projects to fund. That way, young people get to fund school projects such as philosophy workshops for children and adolescents, or health lessons for secondary school students. Anyone wishing to introduce young people to participatory budgeting can make use of the project’s white paper and toolkit!

Young People and Democratic Participation

“Participation is one of the ways through which we can shift the direction of our society,” according to the coordinator of the Romanian project Youth for Democracy. The project involved 850 young people in democratic processes through a range of activities, including a simulation of the European Parliament – where participants debated existing laws – and a workshop featuring discussions, a guest lecture and a World Café.

Similarly, Idee in Comune and its follow-up project, Europa in Comune, helped young people in four Italian regions to understand that “the personal is political”. Participants learned how to calculate a budget, ask for permits and improve work practices, and they got in touch with local administrators. In the latter project, participants organised simulations in schools where they facilitated activities for other young people, then asked them for feedback to assess their success.

Younger children can also engage with democratic and civic life, as demonstrated by the pedagogical concept of a Kinderstadt, or Children’s Town, where children (typically 7-14 years old) get to experience the complex relationships and processes of a miniature society. The concept had already been implemented in several German cities by the time the Kinderstadt Goes Europe project transferred it to other countries: Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Romania and Sweden.

The PROMISE project argued that the political disillusionment often seen in young people could provide opportunities for positive social engagement. Among other things, the project produced 22 ethnographic case studies exploring young people’s points of view, also summarised in a video.

In this context we may also pose the question: what does it mean to be an active citizen?

You can also read more about the European Solidarity Corps, a nexus of socially beneficial projects that young people can volunteer or work for.