Youth&Municipalities4Democracy

This pilot course is a variation of the Municipalities4Democracy training course module of the Democracy Reloading Partnership aiming to train municipal youth policy officers and municpal youth representatives at the same so that they can reflect together on their exisiting youth participation practice and identify ways of improving it. The training course will have elements when the officers and young people will work together, and elements when they will work separately.

The training course is based on the Democracy Reloading Reference Framework and its new DR Workbook. The activity will take place in the beautiful city of Mons, 50 minutes from Charleroi Airport, or 80 minutes from Brussels Airport.

Objectives of this training course 

• to assess the 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 experience and practices of participants regarding democratic youth participation in municipal decision-making,
• to understand the content and the potentials 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 competences of all stakeholders locally,

Participants are expected to apply in tandem as follows:

One municipal youth policy officer from a municipality where their is 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 that must apply indicating the youth representative selected by the municipality. The youth representative shall be ideally 18-20 years old, or in case the selected youth representative is younger (15-18) the applicant must take care of all the child protection measures according to the national legislation of their country.

Priority will be given to the member countries of the Democracy Reloading Partnership and to those municipalities who have experience in implementing, or a plan to design Erasmus +  / Solidarity Corps projects with the topic of local democratic youth participation.

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