We wanted: - to demonstrate that young people can be active citizens if they are addressed in the right way and with the right content - to show young people's educators that the implementation of a municipal PP is a very practical opportunity to encourage active citizenship among young people - to develop quality, sustainable learning and motivational tools for young people and educators, applicable across the EU - mobilise and involve experts from different fields of youth work in both countries - offer youth educators new skills and approaches to youth mobilisation, namely the concepts of authentic learning experiences, facilitated community workshops and politically democratic growing up - increase the participation of young people in proposing and voting in local PPs - to examine whether informing and motivating young people in a digital or physical environment works better - produce publicly available bilingual professional material for youth educators - to gain internationally comparable experience and knowledge - gain new knowledge and experience for further development of our NGO’s in the field of increasing youth participation - to increase the visibility and professional relevance of our organisation at Slo and Eu
Young Europeans are not involved in participatory democratic processes. The decline in youth participation is also due to the lack of teaching on practical opportunities for active citizenship (AC) in the school process. A similar lack of skills is also observed among youth educators. Non active young people become passive citizens. As an untapped opportunity to promote AC, we introduced young people and educators to municipal participatory budgets (PBs), a tool of direct democracy that allows participation from the age of 15, encourages community action and has quickly visible effects. We wanted to motivate young people to participate and equip youth educators with the necessary skills on a permanent basis. To ensure effective knowledge transfer, we produced high-quality professional learning materials, conducted training workshops, and implemented a activation campaign. We gave participants the opportunity to test the knowledge by participating in a local PBs. Our activities have increased the number of young people participating in the PB compared to the previous year, and the training materials produced have been well received by the trainers. The project took place in Slovenia and Portugal.