PB Youth Accelerator is the working title of a new initiative looking to collate evidence of participatory budgeting involving young people in the community and in schools.
This two year research partnership consists of 5 partners from 3 countries.
It is lead by Polish foundation Soclab, with collaborators from Field of Dialogue in Poland and the University of Granada’s Medialab in Spain, as well as Shared Future CIC in the UK and Community Places in Northern Ireland.
It gives opportunities for youth workers and teachers working with young people to explore how to implement a participatory budget(PB) processes. It will seek to develop their capacity and competencies towards ensuring the participation of young people in the civic life of the city, community or school.
We know young people wish to be good citizens, as has been seen by the recent climate change school strikes happening across Europe. This project will harness that energy and help make it into a lifelong learning opportunity.
In contrary to the participation in more formal local or parliamentary elections, the participation in the participatory budget is possible at much younger ages. Through PB young people have an opportunity to learn through experience of what being a good citizen means, with a focus on the co-decision possibilities in spending public funds.
The experience of the project partners’ shows that it is necessary to undertake further educational and supporting activities, in particular in creating inter-sectoral partnerships in order to increase the involvement of young people in the social life.
The project has just got underway and will run over 2 years. The first major event, besides scoping research that is now beginning, will be a 4 day learning exchange between the 20th and 24th April 2020 in Glasgow.
Read more about the project on the Erasmus+website
To connect with the project and find out more Email Jez Hall