We believe that young people should have a voice in shaping their future through participatory democracy.
One of our current initiatives is a joint project funded by Erasmus+, working with colleagues in Poland, Spain and Northern Ireland, to develop 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.
So far the project has collated many case studies of youth focussed PB, and in the final stages of developing its comprehensive toolkit. Though delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic we have still been active, and the project is now entering its testing phase.
We have also contributed to a series of blogs on new directions in youth participation, the first of which was published on 10th March 2021.
Find out more about Youth PB Accelerator
Over the last few years we have been reporting on youth led PB on the PB network website. We have also taken part in a number of webinars on the topic over the years.
Starting in 2019 we took the next step through the PB Youth Accelerator Project.
In April 2020 we coordinated a number of online workshops, as part of the learning for the project. We also participated in drafting up the case studies and toolkit, which are now in their final design and proofing, before also being translated into Polish and Spanish. We have been meeting regularly online with our partners to support the wider project goals.
There is now a draft website and also a Facebook group. But the real detailed work has been through the local projects led by our partners that have been inspired and informed by our collaboration.
This two year research partnership consists of five partners from three countries. It is 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 is funded by Erasmus+.
