More information
Description
The aim of the project is to engage young people from the city of Koszalin in the affairs of the city and to create space for them to decide about their immediate environment. In their schools they will learn how to be publicly active and will make decisions that will affect the whole school community. The project is necessary for several reasons. Firstly, we observe low civic activity of young people (e.g. involvement in creating projects and voting as part of the civic budget in Koszalin – 25% of the total, volunteer activity – 2% of the total). The second reason is the lack of access to knowledge – there are no classes organized in schools concerning civic activity or self-government. Thirdly, there is little awareness among parents and teachers about the need to engage young people in participatory processes. The project is implemented in three primary schools in Koszalin. The most important activities include: workshops dedicated to different types of civic activity, volunteering and self-governance – by this we would like to show that it is possible and worthwhile to be active; workshops on creating ideas for the school participatory budget – we will give space to decide on the most important issues from the point of view of the students; a summimg up event in each school – through this we will integrate the school community, show the benefits of engaging in school affairs, promote the most active people. The beneficiaries of the activities are primarily the communities of the three schools: students, representatives of parent councils and the teaching staff. The project is implemented in partnership with the Municipality of Koszalin. It provides substantive support for the carried out activities as well as additional tools for communication with the inhabitants, thus influencing the promotion and visibility of the activities carried out.
Summary of project results
When starting the project, we had a clear picture of the problem situation that required taking the actions we planned:
a. visible low level of civic activity of young people: both in the case of school volunteering, involvement in the municipal participatory budget or other consultation processes, there was a noticeable low participation of young people in this type of activities; the youth city council has not been active for almost 10 years. All this meant that young people rarely united in common processes/activities, their voice was not visible in the everyday life of the city or schools.
b. lack of access to knowledge and improvement of skills related to involvement in activities for the local community - no organized classes on civic activity, consultations or self-government were conducted in schools. Data collected from participants of meetings with young people from secondary schools and universities conducted by the Pracownia in 2018-2021 showed, among others, that 98% of them did not have classes on civic activity at the primary school level, and approximately 90% does not know any non-governmental organization, has not heard of the citizen budget
c. lack of space for practical learning of cooperation, enabling active participation of young people in creating local policies - in primary schools in Koszalin, there were no initiatives involving the entire student community, building a common identity and a sense of belonging to the school community. Teachers usually did not involve students in problems that were important for the city and young people, e.g.: lack of a strategy for the development of green areas or places for active leisure.
d. insufficient awareness and knowledge of the community (parents, teachers, local authorities) about the need to include this age group in participatory processes: stereotypical thinking about this age group from other environments was visible, limiting its opportunities for active participation in local development and in the life of the school itself .
The project activities included conducting two editions of school civic budgets in primary schools in Koszalin - in the school year 2021-2022 and 2022-2023. Each edition is a set of activities involving both students and adults - teachers and parents'' councils.
Each edition included:
• animation activities aimed at adapting planned activities to the needs and specificity of each school, including joint creation of budget rules/regulations
• workshop meetings on civic activity; they concerned, among others, volunteering and the activities of school volunteer clubs, activity in non-governmental organizations, principles of operation of local government
• open workshops for students including: diagnosis of needs, generating ideas, grouping, creating possible solutions and developing details of projects
• events summarizing a given edition of budgets, involving the entire school community.
The most important products of design activities:
• 4 primary schools in Koszalin where the participatory school budget (sbo) was implemented
• 6 implemented sbo editions
• 12 projects implemented as part of sbo (out of over 100 ideas submitted during workshops)
• 1,024 people involved in activities
• 49 substantive meetings and workshops for participants
• 6 summary events with the participation of school communities
• 74 pieces of information promoting the project in the media, websites and social networking sites.
Taking a holistic view, we managed to achieve all the intended goals and results: we enabled people participating in the project to experience a positive experience of civic activity, we built a community and shared responsibility within schools. In line with the assumptions, we taught young people how to talk, dialogue, look for common values, communicate their own needs, and be open to the needs of others; and we also gave them the opportunity to have a real impact on the reality around them and a sense of agency.
These positive changes became gradually visible during both editions of civic budgets, both among students and (perhaps even more) among the teaching staff. The implemented ideas of young people, and especially the organized summary events, were widely echoed in school communities.
All schools agreed that it was worth getting involved in the project activities. There was a visible change in the awareness of all participating parties, what we cared about most when starting the entire project - to show new possibilities of cooperation and increase mutual trust.
For the implementers themselves, cooperation in the implementation of activities brought noticeable benefits, mainly due to the well-created division of tasks, which resulted in greater effectiveness of their implementation.
The perception of the topic of activating young people at the Koszalin City Hall has also changed for the better - in the promotion and education departments, which directly cooperated with us on the project. We have started talks about implementing permanent mechanisms for building space for the participation of young people in Koszalin schools. For now, these talks have been suspended during the election campaign and local government elections, but we will return to this topic in the near future, with new people (both the President, the Deputy Mayor for Social Affairs and, to a large extent, the composition of the City Council have changed).