With the Play Your Role (P.Y.R) project, Concordia Auvergne sought to address a growing concern: the steady decline in democratic participation among young people. Those under 30 vote less, are more distrustful of institutions, feel underrepresented and express increasing frustration with political decisions. Successive crises (political, health, social, international and climate) have reinforced this feeling and caused some young people to lose confidence in the future. Based on this observation, Concordia designed P.Y.R as a tool to rebuild the link between young people and the mechanisms of democracy. The project, submitted to R1 2024 following the success of P.E.A.C.E, had a clear ambition: to put young people back in the position of actors, capable of understanding, questioning and influencing decisions that affect their territory, particularly with a view to the 2026 municipal elections. To achieve this, the association formed a group of volunteers (CES, Franco-Italian civic service, civic service, interns) representing cultural and social diversity. This plurality enriched the exchanges, allowed for the comparison of different points of view, and also measured the extent of the divide between young people and public policy. The project focused on two main areas: on the one hand, raising awareness and gathering the opinions of young people in the area, particularly those who are not actively involved in society (local missions, École de la 2ᵉ Chance, social centres in priority neighbourhoods, unengaged groups); on the other hand, transforming these opinions into concrete political contributions: citizen proposals. This citizen proposal, a participatory initiative led by the City of Clermont-Ferrand, was a major objective of the project. The idea was to show young people that their ideas would not remain symbolic, but could be formalised, officially submitted to decision-makers and integrated into an existing institutional framework. This perspective gave clear meaning to their involvement: moving from awareness to real impact. To achieve this, P.Y.R was structured around several operational objectives: - Creating spaces for exchange between young people, in order to encourage them to speak freely, identify their needs, frustrations and proposals for improving the social, political and sustainable life of the region; - Strengthening their understanding of how democracy works (local authorities, institutional powers, participatory tools, political timelines); - Develop their skills in facilitation, project management, collective work and knowledge of the SDGs; - Collectively build actionable ideas to feed into future citizen proposals; - Bridging the gap between young people and elected officials by creating opportunities for direct dialogue and giving young people guidance on how to engage with institutions. The method used was based on active and socio-constructive teaching: the young people designed, led and evaluated each project activity. They met every month during ‘training sessions’ to prepare their interventions, analyse feedback, adjust their tools and consolidate the proposals they had gathered. By working in this way, they were able to overcome their initial mistrust, understand institutional logic and feel empowered to make a political contribution. At the end of the project, P.Y.R had achieved three major advances: - a real rapprochement between young people and local political actors, thanks to meetings and the development of a concrete political tool; - a significant increase in the skills of the group of volunteers, who are now able to act as democratic relays for other young people; - the formalisation of collective ideas and needs to feed into the citizens' proposal, which is the culmination of the project.