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Description
The IamRunning.cz project strives to support young people’s engagement in local politics. It aims at solving the current nearly negligible participation of young Czechs in local councils, which accompanies their overall weak interest in politics, notable also in cross-European comparison. In order to get engaged in local politics, participants of IamRunning.cz therefore gain inspiration, necessary information and skills, as well as the chance to experience how local councils operate, all in an active way. Main activities of the projects are workshops focused on both municipal politics topics, and soft skills led by trained instructors, academics with experience or young politicians themselves. Other type of activity consists of simulation of local authority session where the participants put gathered information and skills in practice. Thanks to activity serving for defining main characteristics, advantages and weaknesses through lean canvas method, the participants will prepare their campaign plan. Young people with interest in politics and entering municipal politics will benefit from the project by being guided on their way to gain skills and knowledge to enter smoothly into the world of politics through being a candidate. In general, community serving for mentorship of future young politicians by more experienced ones can grow thanks to this first step towards the change of the current phenomenon.
Summary of project results
The key problem that Kandiduju.cz is trying to address is the lack of involvement of young people at all levels of political representation, in this case especially at the municipal level. According to the OECD Youth Stocktaking Report, the Czech Republic had the highest percentage of young people aged between 15 and 29 who are not interested in politics at all (more than 50%) of all the countries surveyed. Data from the Ministry of the Interior from the 2018 elections confirm that the average age of the representatives is noticeably higher than the average age of the whole country, the age group between 18 and 30 years old is underrepresented by about three times compared to its representation in the population (4.65% x 12.69%) and only 294 students or graduates were elected in the whole country (about 0.5%).
Young people are a significant part of our society and electorate. We do not see the problem as a given and believe that, as in other cases, apathy towards public affairs can be solved through a participatory approach. We start from the assumption that institutions more inclusively representing broad sections of society are able to produce better governance outcomes. Higher levels of youth participation can benefit the public both by directly representing the interests of a significant segment of the population and by enriching political representation with representatives of a noticeably more educated generation unburdened by a totalitarian past.
To address the problem outlined, the project chose the path of supporting and developing specific young individuals to actively participate in their community. The individual activities together formed an intensive six-month training programme consisting of several weekend events and ongoing online training. Throughout the program, participants learnt theoretically and practically what municipal politics entails, built a network of contacts with individuals from across the country that would help them overcome the pitfalls of the public sphere, and more broadly helped disrupt entrenched ideas about who is affected by and can participate in public decision-making. Their attention was directed in particular to their immediate surroundings, where they had the greatest space to influence anything, to see relatively immediate feedback on their actions and not to be quickly disillusioned by the distorted political culture of the higher levels of the state. They were consistently encouraged to see politics not only as a space for their own self-realisation, but above all as a service to their environment, for example by critically familiarising themselves with diverse examples from practice.
The project has helped educate future and aspiring municipal politicians, leading to a more effective and cultivated political process, municipal politics and candidates/representatives.