Municipalities4Democracy - Local youth policy and youth voice

If you want the young people in your community to be actively engaged you need to involve them in decision making and development of local youth policies. Municipalities and regional public authorities should therefore commit to:

• address the needs and interests of youth, 
• involve youth in decisions influencing their lives, 
• work to increase their level of ownership of and responsibility for their own community, 

With this commitment you will develop the quality of your local democracy. We believe that when young people are informed, trained, empowered and entrusted they will be better actors of change and promoters of democracy. 

Objectives of this training course

• to share experience of the participants regarding local youth participation in decision-making,
• to understand the content and the functions of the online Toolkit, and the prepare the participants for further independent use,
• to identify ways and ideas for your municipality to further develop the local youth participation, 
• to understand the potential for municipalities to use the Erasmus+ Youth programme and its funding opportunities to achieve this

Who is this training course for?

• Primarily for municipal youth policy officers and local political representatives focusing on youth policy and citizens, secondary it is also open to youth workers who coordinate / support youth council or other types of youth participation structures, who want to implement or improve the youth participation in municipal decision-making,
• Participants must be able to follow the training course in English language,
• Priority will be given to participants from countries that are members of the Democracy Reloading Partnership (see the list below).

The methodology of the training course is based on non-formal experiential learning. Participants will share their experience and practices, there will be few presentations by experts and most of the sessions will be interactive and participatory. The Democracy Reloading Toolkit will be presented in more detail and we will explore ways of integrating and using the Toolkit in the youth policy context of the municipality.

About Democracy Reloading

Democracy Reloading Partnership is a long-term cooperation project of 19 Erasmus+ Youth national agencies that started in 2015, with the aim to contribute to the development of youth participation in democratic decision-making at local and regional level across Europe. Based on the lessons learned of the first 5 years and a research study, an online Toolkit was designed in 2020 to support local municipal youth policy officers to design, implement, improve and evaluate municipal youth participation. The Partnership runs until 2027 and includes the continuous improvement of the Toolkit, organising training courses, webinars and conferences on the topic. The Toolkit is available here: https://democracy-reloading.eu  

Member countries: Portugal, Italy, Belgium FR, Belgium FL, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, France, Spain, Poland, Slovakia, Estonia, Cyprus, Sweden, Greece, Iceland, Bulgaria, Armenia, Georgia