The PB Network has been reporting on innovations in Participatory Budgeting, and so we are pleased to read this update on Boston Youth Leads the Change on the Guardian Newspaper’s Cities webpages. As reported by Sandra Larson on the 31st March 2016:
"When the city of Boston gave teenagers the power to allocate a million dollars a year on urban improvements, there was skepticism – not just from officials, but from youth who assumed they’d be ignored. The results surprised everyone."
In the story it reports that in the Youth Leads the Change programme’s first year, 1,500 young people cast votes at polling places in schools, community centres and transit stations across the city. The next year, it was 2,000. In total, its estimated more than 5,000 young people have been involved – whether submitting ideas, voting or working as change agents.
As part of the Guardian’s report they shared this short video:
