Youth&Municipalities4Democracy Portugal

This training course is a variation of the Municipalities4Democracy training course module of the Democracy Reloading Partnership, aiming to train municipal youth policy officers and municipal youth representatives at the same time, so that they can reflect together on their planned or existing youth participation practice and identify ways of improving it. The training course will have moments when the officers and young people will work together, and moments when they will work separately. The training course is based on the Democracy Reloading approach and its Workbook.

Objectives of this training course 

• to assess the existing policy context, the youth participation structure and system, the municipal environment, and the personal competences from the perspective of the participants (both municipal officers and youth representatives)
• to share experiences and practices of participants regarding democratic youth participation in municipal decision-making,
• to understand the content and the potential of the Democracy Reloading tools and the new website, and to prepare the participants for further use,
• to understand how Erasmus+ Youth and ESC programs, and Europe Goes Local tools can support developing youth participation in municipal decision-making,
• to identify possible next steps to further develop the strategy and structure of municipal youth participation and its management, and further improve the competencies of all stakeholders locally.

Methodology

Our training course methodology is based on non-formal learning, which means we try to limit the number of lectures as much as possible, and instead, we are offering space and tools for participants:

• to discover different forms of local youth participation in decision-making 
• to reflect on their local key partners/stakeholders
• to share their challenges, experiences and practices
• to understand professional self-reflection
• to experiment with strategies in simulation activities
• to create a network with fellow municipalities
• to identify ways and ideas for your municipality to further develop local youth participation.

These methods would expect active/interactive participation throughout the course and less formal dress codes than in office settings.

Participants are expected to apply in tandem as follows:

• One municipal youth policy officer from a municipality where there is an existing youth participation structure, together with one youth representative from their existing or planned youth participation structure (for example, youth council, student council, or a youth ngo).
• It is the municipal policy officer who must apply, indicating the youth representative selected by the municipality. The youth representative should be 18-25 years old. Due to complex child protection policies, we cannot select minors (under 18).

Priority will be given to the participants of member countries of the Democracy Reloading Partnership and to those municipalities that have already participated in a Municipalites4Democracy training course.

Members of Democracy Reloading: Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, France, Spain, Slovakia, Cyprus, Sweden, Greece, Iceland, Bulgaria, Poland, Estonia, Armenia,