The Council of Europe project “Strengthening civil participation in democratic decision making in Ukraine”  has completed a series of trainings on the basics of civic engagement and School participatory budgeting for schoolchildren of Vinnytsia. The online game-based trainings and interactive courses, in addition to individual coaching sessions, helped children master practical skills and competencies in developing of ideas and projects for the benefit of the school community. Learning about citizen participation in the decision-making process resulted in a high level of engagement of school students in pilot communities.

The School PB has been successfully implemented even when schools were closed due to the pandemic thanks to the unique online learning methodology, tailored expert support and the online platform for School PB. The results of the School PB in Vinnytsia are incredible: 16 participating educational institutions and 80 submitted projects. And all this - during distance learning and quarantine restrictions: despite today's conditions, a successful voting was conducted and more than 8,000 of young men and women  cast their vote. This result was made possible thanks to a series of trainings conducted by the project: 52 participants from 31 schools worked on various ideas for School PB and learned about the full range of civil participation tools that young people can use to promote their ideas and influence the decision-making. The authors of the projects received recommendations from the experts of the CoE project and prepared 38 final proposals, which were submitted for the School PB.

In addition to enhancing the competencies and skills of young men and women, the Council of Europe project provides support to Ukrainian municipalities in implementing the School PB according to the CoE toolkit. It provides public authorities with detailed methodology on developing the regulation on School PB and its implementation. The Council of Europe methodology is developed in partnership with numerous stakeholders, public authorities, experts, NGOs and schools from across Ukraine and is based on the best practices and CoE standards. In 2020, 4 communities - Krolevets OTG, Krasnosilsk Territorial Community, the cities of Ternopil and Mukachevo - have already introduced School PB according to the CoE model. Currently, active cooperation is underway with a number of new pilot communities.