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Description
Our observations indicate that young people are still not particularly interested in civic engagement. It can be illustrated by their low turnover in the 2019 European Parliament elections on the level of 41%. The EU Youth Strategy (2019–2027) encourages authorities to engage in joint activities aiming at shaping policy for young people, but our observations show that many local governments do not treat these activities particularly seriously.We would like to partially address this challenge by strengthening the voice and engagement of youths living in Mikołów and Rybnik (Śląskie province) and other towns interested in this issue. We will start from preparing a summary of various youth activities in the country and around the globe which we will present to youth town councils and youth groups that we will recruit for the project. We will run consultations devoted to their needs. We will train leaders, youth group supervisors, and town representatives to raise their social consultation skills. We will also run a workshop for youth councils to raise their soft skills and prepare them to hold social consultations. Each group will then work on a consultation model adjusted to the profile of their town, and will run consultations with support of their supervisors. After consultations youths will establish contact with decisionmakers and together they will discuss their outcome.Our partners include Youth Town Councils of Mikołów and Rybnik that will support us with their know-how and will help us recruit young people.
Summary of project results
The project addresses the problem of low interest of young people in civic activism. Only 41% of young people voted in the 2019 European Parliament elections. The European Union Youth Strategy (2019-27) encourages authorities to carry out joint policy-making activities for young people, but many local authorities do not take this action seriously and fail to prevent the marginalisation of young people in various endeavours and do not see youth as valued partner when working on social issues and engaging in local initiatives. This is despite the existence of, for example, youth city councils.
We wanted to respond, at least in part, to this challenge by amplifying the voice and involvement of young people living in four cities in the Silesian Voivodship.
We started by preparing a compilation of different youth activities in the country and the world, which we then presented to the participants of our project. We then implemented soft skills training for 40 young people and supported young people in carrying out 4 public consultation processes in Tychy, Rybnik, Piekary Śląskie and Bielsko Biała.
In addition, we labelled 8 institutions with the Youth Friendly Institution Badge, which were awarded by youth councillors. The culmination of the project was the Youth Friendly Cities Gala, which was attended by around 100 people.
As a result of our project, we reached over 1,000 people and activated 4 Youth Councils. The lasting change we have made is the creation of a badging system for youth-friendly institutions. In addition, the training of young leaders has improved communication with local leaders which has resulted in the exchange of experiences, cooperation and opened access to the local communities involved in the project.