Youth Step Up!

Youth participation in democratic life - in planning and shaping of youth policy – needs better facilitation. Young people’s engagement in decision-making process is a pre-eminent issue that needs to be tackled at grassroots level through supporting various aspects of youth mainstreaming. Nowadays, young people are excluded from democratic processes taking place at the local level; they are in need of getting experience of civic participation to bring positive change and innovative ideas in policy planning and implementing processes. Whereas the voice of young people is more vocal at national level, their interests are not advocated at the local level with policymakers. Also youth policy is not planned together with the young people who represent the target group. There is a lack of youth engagement in different stages of policy development even at consulting level, while including young people at agenda setting and enactment stage is instrumental in shaping successful policies. Besides, decision-makers are often distant from the concerns of youth, there is a lack of communication between the two parties. Moreover, young people are not well-aware of the ways and mechanisms through which they can not only participate in democratic life, but also make an impact on it. The project takes into account the prevalent reality, meaning a) very low consciousness of the importance of youth participation and positive outcomes that are the immediate result of including young people in democratic processing and b) purposes to cope with several challenges simultaneously in order to promote the development.

Stemming from the fact that youth engagement is not assisted at local level the project targets to raise the awareness of young people about the opportunities enabling them to contribute to more efficient policy. Considering these preconditions and the need of developing youth mainstreaming and participation at local level, the project aims at promoting and encouraging youth to become more engaged in all stages of policy shaping, making it possible to not only adapt system, but also to take part in changing it.

Objectives of the project:
• To foster the engagement of young people in policy planning and implementing processes at grassroots level
• To raise the youth’s awareness about the opportunities they can use to participate in decision-making process
• To advocate and strengthen the representation of youth voice
• To set up a constructive dialogue framework between youth and policymakers in order to promote democracy
• To establish cooperation mechanisms between local authorities and youth representatives in order to foster involvement
• To promote initiatives on how to make youth voices heard at local governmental institutions
• To provide young people with the knowledge on how to coordinate their ideas
• To raise young people’s awareness about their rights to information and consultation concerning local policies
• To advocate the establishment of community-based youth organization working on the regional self-governmental issues
• To develop the sense of initiative among youngsters to take part in democratic processes