Young people should be consulted and have meaningful opportunities to participate in making decisions about the planning and management of their living environment.

What is the situation?      

Young people living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods:

  • Are amongst the most politically excluded
  • Are often excluded from the decisions that affect their lives
Young peoples’ ideas and opinions should be included in decisions about their environment. This will improve decisions and help young people to become active citizens.
 

 

Transcript:
"In order to address all these problems, approaching young people and find a way to motivate them, inspire them, we try to cooperate with different organisations and different stakeholders, we found, we try to find ways of collaboration between NGOs that address youth policies and youth networks,  we have a great cooperation between the municipality of the … case and the youth Social Rights Network which is an open and informal network about youth social rights for young people and we have a great cooperation together, we have been mapping projects and we try to include young people, at first, but also local authorities, private sector representatives and public sector representatives. So I believe that you can also, young people to have the opportunity to connect all these stakeholders together, have your voice heard and support the networking and the collaboration between different stakeholders."


What should public authorities do?

  • Support young people and those who represent young people to participate in making decisions about their living environment.
  • Listen and respond to the young people by designing services and facilities in response to their needs.
  • Establish spaces where young people can express their ideas, opinions and suggestions. These could be youth councils, youth parliaments or youth forums at local or regional levels. They should be open to all young people. (See the Council of Europe’s principles of co-management)
  • Ensure that young people know about consultations and opportunities to influence the decisions that affect them. This information should be youth friendly and available in places where young people go, such as local media, youth centres, or sports clubs.
  • Provide youth organisations that work in disadvantaged neighbourhoods with support and resources to speak with, and engage young people in decision-making processes.

Examples from the Enter! Project

  • A project developed by an organisation called CATCH-22 in the United Kingdom worked on changing the way that young people feel about their school environment and to encourage them to be more engaged in school life. The project supported the creation of a school environment where the young people felt fully respected, valued and accepted. A group of young people who were at risk of being excluded from their school, parents, and schoolteachers were involved in the project which involved the young people reviewing the school behavioural policy and delivering peer-to-peer training.
  • In Azerbaijan an organisation called Human Rights in the XXI Century worked with 14-18 year olds who had been abandoned by their parents and brought up in an orphanage. The project supported these young people to integrate into society. The young people participated in training programmes that increased their knowledge about their social rights in areas such as housing, health, education, employment, legal and social protection, mobility rights, and non-discrimination. A round table discussion and press conference was held, at which the young people spoke with politicians, public officials, the media and civil society. By learning about these rights and communicating with decision makers, the young people increased their self-esteem, confidence and ability to express their opinion about youth policy. At the same time, decision makers learnt about the particular challenges facing young people leaving care.
  • Canal Communities Regional Youth Service based in Ireland worked with a group of 17-21 year olds from Dublin who were volunteering as youth leaders in their local community and who wanted to develop skills and knowledge to become youth workers. The project, ‘An Issue for YOUth’ supported participants to learn about their social rights (especially housing, education and non-discrimination), and to understand the difficulties that young people in different parts of the world have in accessing the same rights. The participants undertook a two week volunteering and study visit to Tanzania where they worked to improve the facilities in a local school, teach English, organise non-formal educational activities and visit social projects, including an HIV campaign set up by local women. Through participation in the project the young people shared their experiences of growing up in a disadvantaged community in Dublin and learnt about the challenges facing young people in Tanzania.