We believe that young people should have a voice in shaping their future through participatory democracy.

That is why we took part in a joint project, funded by Erasmus+, working with colleagues in Poland, Spain and Northern Ireland.

The project created a ‘toolkit’ to encourage best practice and the inclusion of Young People in local participatory budgeting (PB) processes.

This might be in communities or in schools, with the aim of encouraging youth inclusion and harnessing the enthusiasm and passion of young people to shape their future.

The Youth PB website

On the YouthPB website are many case studies, and as well as downloads for many useful resources, including the comprehensive toolkit and practical ‘DIY Manual’. The project also preduced an animated video. We also contributed to a series of blogs on some new directions in youth participation, first published in March 2021.

more about Youth PB Accelerator

In April  2020 we coordinated a number of online workshops, as part of the learning phase for the project. We also participated in drafting up the case studies and toolkit, also being translated into Polish and Spanish. We met regularly online with our partners to support the wider project goals.

Alongside the project website and also a Facebook group. But the real detailed work was through the local projects led by our partners, that have been inspired and informed by our collaboration.

This two year research partnership included five partners from three countries. It was lead by Polish foundation Soclab, with collaborators from Field of Dialogue in Poland and the University of Granada’s Medialab in Spain, as well as Shared Future CIC in the UK and Community Places in Northern Ireland. The project was funded by the European Erasmus+ programme.

Download the main YouthPB toolkit

Download the DIY manual