Through this project we wished to answer these questions: - How do young people themselves define youth participation? - What forms of participation do young people themselves recognize and value (including not just participation in a traditional sense, e.g. being a member of a Youth Council etc., but also alternative ways of participation such as being active in online communities)? - What are the methods for youth work to support youth participation and enable a meaningful sense of participation in young people? - How can youth work enhance inclusion in participation, i.e. enable participation also for young people with fewer opportunities (often most active young people in participatory activities are those who have many privileges and opportunities)? We wanted to create more effective tools and methods for youth work to support youth participation. This was accomplished by bringing together the views of young people, youth work students, youth workers and youth research in our international workshops. We wanted a deep understanding about the obstacles and challenges in youth participation and then co-develop practical methods to help solving some of these issues.
Youth participation is one of the key topics in the youth field and regularly mentioned, for example, in youth policies and strategy papers. Being in the forefront implies that youth participation is rather well-known, but it is not always clear what exactly we mean when we talk about it. Together with different stakeholders from Finland and Hungary we became curious about what participation means for young people themselves. We know both from studies and our own experience that many young people feel disconnected and socially excluded from their local community and the society in general. They feel that they have no power to affect the decision making processes or to take part in development of their surrounding environment in any way. This exclusion prevents active citizenship of young people, increases risks of mental health issues and risk of poverty and decreases youth’s employability and initiative. (See e.g. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Young_people_-_social_inclusion). This is why we wanted to make a positive impact on youth participation by creating more effective tools and methods for youth work to support youth participation.