Time to Act!

Statistics and research say that youth is very passive when it comes to participation in politics/civic life, which is an alarming trend. We believe that attention to this issue has to be increased. One of the ways to tackle this passiveness is an international dialogue between young people and policy and decision makers.

To promote initiatives and policy reform that aim to produce incentives for the youth to be more active, a project “Time to Act!” will be hosted in Kaunas, Lithuania (May 3 - 11, 2015). There will be 30 youth participants (6 per country | aged 18-30) and a number of decision makers/experts active in the relevant fields. The project will take place during the European Youth Week 2015 and, hence, aligns its goals with the ones of the Week.

The main objective of the project is to enhance youth participation in politics and beyond across Eu-rope. In order to reach this, the following goals were set: (1a) to explore principles and forms of youth participation and identify various factors resulting in a lack of it; (1b) find out what triggers temporal hikes in youth participation; 2) to exchange good examples of practices tackling the issue; (3) to plan follow-up initiatives/strategies/reforms regarding youth participation and propose these to the decision-makers across participating countries. The project also aims to help the participants grow professionally and increase their chances in future careers.