“YOUTH COUNCIL PARTICIPATION IN EUROPE” Project

The municipality of Kristiansand (Norway), together with DYPALL Network (Portugal), Viimsi youth center (Estonia) and Klaipėda City municipality administration (Lithuania), is implementing the project 2022-3-NO02-KA210-YOU-000099972, “Youth council participation in Europe” (Youth council PIE), financed from the funds of the Erasmus+ programme, and running from March 2023 until November 2024. The project aims to identify the problems of the Youth Councils, find solutions and strengthen the activities of the youth councils.

The organisations participating in the project have different concepts and experiences about the activities of the youth council. Still, they face similar challenges and problems, for example, how should the concept and regulation be defined, the participation of members in the council activities, the quality of the work, and the motivation of the youth. Having identified the problems and to change the current situation and strengthen the activities of the youth councils, together with the partners, we hope to achieve the following results:

• organise two study visits in Norway and Lithuania, in which two representatives of the youth councils and two representatives of the participating organisations from each country will participate to share the experiences of the countries about the activities of the active youth councils;
• analyse the activities of the youth councils and provide recommendations on how to improve and plan further activities;
• each partner will submit at least two proposals to politicians or other institutions on how to create a better youth-friendly environment;
• organise four multipliers events and ensure dissemination of project results.

We hope that these project results will contribute to the strengthening of youth participation, the development of democratic values, the promotion of the activities of youth councils, and youth empowerment in the partner countries participating in the project.

The project partners have already planned the first project activity, which involves a study to provide insights into the current youth council activities in the participating countries. It will be conducted on the structural mechanism of youth councils, their functions and the youth policy system. Together with the partners, information will be collected, and the current situation of youth councils will be analysed; good experiences will be shared to identify young people’s needs and opportunities. We hope that the analysis results and the presented recommendations will strengthen the competencies of the youth councils of partners and organisations and the representation of youth interests at the local level and will also help gain good international experience.