“Fostering a Culture of Participation: Mainstreaming Local Youth Councils in Europe” Transnational Project Meeting

The 2nd and last Transnational Project Meeting of the project “Fostering a Culture of Participation: Mainstreaming Local Youth Councils in Europe” took place from 18th – 19th October 2022 in Namur, Belgium.

The meeting was hosted by CRECCIDE and gave the opportunity to explore the publication produced during the project, evaluate the different phases and activities, and explore upcoming cooperation opportunities.

The publication “Local Youth Councils – mapping practices”, a collection of different approaches, allowed the 5 country partners to reflect on their national, regional and local approaches and establish bridges with other relevant structures and actors. The practices presented are meant to showcase various possibilities, providing practical examples of the applicability, transferability, and implementation of different solutions and dimensions, such as the number of people involved, the age average, the link between local governance, its objectives, and resources available. Although the inside perspectives collected are not an exhaustive transcription of the interviews, they are very insightful in comprehending different perceptions and feelings regarding the same participatory structure.

In the framework of the project, one of the activities was the “Quality Assurance in Local Youth Councils” training course, which took place from 2nd – 8th May 2022 in Portimão, Portugal. The training course was an opportunity to engage 23 participants from the four partners’ countries and created a worthy space in which more than 50 people, young people, youth workers, and decision-makers, shared their expertise and insights.

On the last day, the consortium still had the possibility to get to know in more detail the support provided by CRECCIDE to Belgium municipalities and its tools, approaches, and mechanisms of child and youth participation.

The project was implemented by DYPALL Network in cooperation with CRECCIDE (Belgium), Città di Collegno (Italy), KRAPINSKO-ZAGORSKA ZUPANIJA (Croatia) and Mladinski svet Ajdovščina (Slovenia). It is funded under the Erasmus+ KA2 Exchange of Good practices programme by the BIJ – Bureau International Jaunesse National Agency.