Youth and Participation: URBACT Young Citizens‘ Project
At the outset of this project potential partner cities were invited to join a network in which young people would be empowered to make a contribution to civic life in their cities; to make recommendations to statutory bodies; and help to develop forms of governance that
encourage the active participation of young people. The idea behind this was simple: young people are the future and, as such, they should be the source of solutions to local issues.
The „Young Citizens‘ Project“ ended up as a network of European cities how set out to create opportunities, open up decision-making
processes, and provide young people with the tools and support to engage meaningfully with issues that are of importance to them.
It was funded by the EU’s “URBACT” programme and IRIS researcher Axel Pohl supported the network as a Thematic Expert.
Partner cities were: Bristol, Sunderland, Belfast and Liverpool/UK, Misterbianco/Italy, Sabadell/Spain and Evosmos/Greece.
Main results of the network have been compiled into a “Toolkit on Youth Participation in Urban Policies”. It can be downloaded from the programme website:
http://urbact.eu/fileadmin/general_library/YCP_Toolkit_ENG.pdf
Contact at IRIS: Axel Pohl