About the project

“Do you want to improve something in your community and don’t know where to start? Youth Parliaments and Youth Councils are a great way for young people to influence change in their communities. If you want to have input in decision-making about issues in your community, you can join your local youth parliament or youth council to make your voice heard. If you want to create a community that encourages youth to get involved, or you are a young person looking for an opportunity to make a difference, you can accomplish so in youth parliaments and youth councils. And you won’t be there alone at all. On the contrary, there are coordinators always ready to help with a plethora of experiences.” said a member of the youth parliament at the 2016 national youth conference in Žilina.

After the launch of several youth parliaments and youth councils, the Youth Council of Žilina Region, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic, began to monitor the quality of the missions of these groups in the local community, as well as the problems with which they are dealing with.

Thanks to many years of international cooperation with other organizations dedicated to youth participation in both the Czech Republic and Poland, we have been able to identify the strengths and problems of young people and their coordinators in the activities and missions of youth parliaments and youth councils.

That is where the idea of jointly tackling the main issues was born, which became the basis for the international project: YC2- Youth Councils Yet Coming, which we implemented thanks to the support of the ERASMUS+ program in 2020-2022.

Project partners: Youth Council of Žilina Region (SK), Žilina Self-Governing Region (SK), Petrklíč Help (CZ), Civis Polonus Foundation (PL).

The main problems addressed by the project are:

• Members and coordinators of youth councils and youth parliaments do not have methodological support.
• The hard work of youth councils and youth parliaments is not recognized in society.
• Youth Councils and Youth Parliaments lack the means to share experiences and build their specific network.

The objectives we have achieved in the project are:

• Increasing methodological support for members and coordinators of youth councils and youth parliaments.
• Raising awareness in society (among municipal representatives, NGOs, policymakers) of the mission, role, and activities of youth councils and youth parliaments.
• Improving networking opportunities, sharing of resources and experiences between youth councils and youth parliaments.

The target groups of the project were:

• The primary target group of the project was members of youth councils and youth parliaments – young people and their coordinators.
• The secondary target group was representatives of local government, NGOs active in the field of youth participation, policymakers.

The results that came out of the joint project are:

• Study on youth parliaments and youth councils.
• Methodology for training members of youth parliaments and youth councils aimed at youth coordinators and youth workers.
• A digital guide for youth parliaments and youth councils and a web-based networking platform.

The project activities also included an educational activity: a pilot training for members of youth councils and youth parliaments and a multiplier event – that being the final conference, where were presented all project outputs, where an agreement was created on the subsequent cooperation of the project partners on improving the quality of youth councils and youth parliaments, and their networking, as well as the creation of mutual partnerships of young people between the countries, were established.