YOUTH TAKES THE FLOOR - A Training Course on How to Increase Youth Participation in Decision Making

“If it comes to your mind that youth should be more actively involved in our society” “If you believe that young people and youth organizations should contribute to influence the local policies that affect their lives” “If you believe that we need to develop innovate approaches and create spaces where young people and local authorities can work together” “… so you should definitely register in this Training Course!!!! The training course “Youth takes the floor” aims to allow youth leaders, youth workers and local authorities officers to work together developing their competences to create spaces where youth can work with local municipalities authorities in the development of local youth policies and strategies for the development of their communities. The activity will have the duration of 7 days, where participants, with the support of a team of experienced trainers, will experience an intense learning process that will enable them to develop the necessary competences to efficiently plan, implement and sustain local youth councils, youth forums and/or other spaces of permanent structured dialogue and co-management at the local level. It will be composed by a mixed group of youth leaders and youth workers from the partners’ organizations and municipalities’ officers working in the youth departments. The event will take place in the south of Portugal in the beautiful and welcoming city of Faro. There we will find a privileged space for mutual learning, where participants will be gathered to learn, discuss and find new ways to involve young people to actively participate and contribute to local policies development in their communities. Objectives The activity aims to reach the following specific objectives: - Create a space for sharing and dialogue among youth organizations (youth leaders&youth workers) and local authorities’ officers (staff responsible for youth&youth workers); - Allow the space for the participants to better understand the role of young people in the development and sustainability of our democracies (structures&processes); - Promote a better understanding of the happening in both sides of the Mediterranean and the roles and impacts of youth in such processes; - Reflect about key concepts (such as advocacy, policy making, partnership, participative and representative democracy) of youth participation in decision making processes and to develop a common understanding; - Identify different instruments and structures of and for youth participation in decision making processes being used in both sides of the Mediterranean in our partners countries, and debate about their potential and challenges; - Develop competences (skills, knowledge and attitudes) in creating conditions for youth participation, in fostering partnerships and the establishment of co-management structures and instruments at local and regional level; - Support the development of strategies and action plans for fostering youth participation processes and the development of structures and instruments of structured dialogue and co-management at local and regional level.