The project aims to address current issues and problems for youth participation in political processes of European digital and Internet policy debate. Today with the speedy development of digital technology and Internet there is an increasing amount of various political processes to debate the governance of the Internet and related issues on various levels. However young people being the main consumer and active user of digital technologies, have little access to and awareness of these processes. Youth is a stakeholder group that is severely underrepresented in these discussions. This is the case in Europe, as it is everywhere else in the world. We aim to create a sustainable programme that empowers young people to set up their own structures and discuss their views with other stakeholders on their own terms. To accomplish that we want to initiate and develop youth structures that will function in parallel to the more common national events and foster relations between young and older stakeholders. Young people should have the possibility to set the agenda, use their own formats to interact and communicate their ideas and make up their minds. To increase the outreach and effect of this programme we aim at creating further participation opportunities for these youth groups to be recognised as representatives of youth in the Internet Governance multi-stakeholder process. The 2 year project will be implemented through a series of transnational project meetings that will be based on non-formal facilitation methods of education, ensuring active cooperation and engagement of each partner organisation. Project activities will include learning, teaching and training, intellectual outputs and 10 multiplier events, two per each partner. NERDY will provide administrative assistance with work on and consulting with the local multiplier events - the Youth IGFs. The impact of this project is the direct long-term engagement of the young people into digital and Internet policy debate, creation and distribution of the established process for youth participation and engagement, creation of the good practice guide that can be used further for establishing new Youth IGFs and dissemination practice that will maintain the updates and improvements to the process of youth participation in the Internet Governance and related foras on the local, regional, national but also International levels. Longer term benefits of this project will result into well established and interconnected network of partner organisations, national and international stakeholders and participants representing their countries and current state of affairs and issues from the local, regional and national levels. Partner organisations and participants will not only gain experience and practical skills on how to establish and organise a Youth IGF practice in their country, but will also get an insight into political, social and economic aspects of the Internet Governance as a structure and as a process that undergoes change and development. All relevant parties of this project will also get accustomed with the multi-stakeholder model and decision making process.
The project deals with the current issues and problems for youth participation in political processes of European digital and Internet policy debate. Today, with the speedy development of digital technology and Internet there is an increasing amount of various political processes to debate the governance of the Internet and related issues on various levels. However, young people being a main consumer and active user of digital technologies, have little access to and awareness of these processes. Youth, as stakeholder group, is severely underrepresented in these discussions. This is the case in Europe, as it is everywhere else in the world. With the European Youth IGF project we created a programme to empower young people to set up their own structures and discuss their views with other stakeholders on their own terms. To accomplish that we have initiated and developed youth structures that will function in parallel to the more common national events and foster relations between youth and older stakeholders. Young people should have the possibility to set the agenda, use their own formats to interact and communicate their ideas and make up their minds. To increase the outreach and effect of this programme we have created further participation opportunities for these youth groups to be recognised as representatives of youth in the Internet Governance multi-stakeholder process. This almost 3-year project has been implemented through a series of transnational project meetings, based on non-formal facilitation methods of education, ensuring active cooperation and engagement of each partner organisation. Project activities included 4 learning, teaching and training events, 2 intellectual outputs and 8 multiplier events, two per each partner and individual participation of selected youth delegates for relevant meetings in the international Internet governance processes. The impact of this project is the long-term engagement of the young people into digital and Internet policy debate and the creation of participative structures coordinated by young people, based on the idea of co-management and the multi-stakeholder model. The good practice guide is be used further for establishing new Youth IGFs and be dissemination practice, which will maintain the updates and improvements to the process of youth participation in the Internet Governance and related foras on the local, regional, national but also International levels. Longer term benefits of this project will result into well established and interconnected national and international stakeholders meeting and youth participants representing their countries and current state of affairs and issues from the local, regional and national levels. Partner organisations and participants not only gained experience and practical skills on how to establish and organise a Youth IGF practice in their country, but also got an insight into political, social and economic aspects of the Internet Governance as a structure and as a process that undergoes change and development. All relevant parties of this project will also get accustomed with the multi-stakeholder model and decision making process.