Valuing Youth Participation Investigation findings Eurochild Annual Conference Milan 2013

We are young people from 6 countries Italy, Sweden, Malta, Bulgaria, Greece, Spain

We have conducted an investigation on: “How can Youth Participation and Children’s right to a voice be improved across Europe”

We used our own experiences to identify the problems we face getting our voices heard.

We then discussed the problems we faced with adults, at the forum of good practices and the special session We added what we learned from adults to our own experiences to create recommendations on how these problems can be solved. We believe these recommendations will help support the voices of young people across Europe

We found 7 problems young people face when trying to get their voices heard

It is difficult to share our ideas effectively with adults There are differences between generations in the way of communication. We all know adults have a busy lifestyle and for that reason when it is time to discuss our problems it is either too late or we don’t have time.

Social status can exclude young people from having our voices heard Some groups of people, due to their higher positions in society, are given more chances for their voices to be heard. This means that children from less wealthy or less powerful families are less likely to be heard. In every society there are people whose voices are perceived as negligible

There are differences between generations - adults did not have the same experience of children’s rights when they were young Adults are trying to pass their mentality on to us. Just because they got used to the way they were raised they think that we should be raised like that as well. Due to developments in technology we have access to more information as well as having more education. Therefore we expect more freedom. Back when adults were young they had less freedom

Some adults don’t ever want to listen to us Some adults think they know everything and think they are the wisest one. They think that we are immature and that we can’t express our opinion. We start to discuss our problems with them but they interupt us and we loose our flow. We can’t generalise by groups of adults but, people who are closest to us are more likely to listen to us.

Some adults listen to us but have a negative perception of the views of young people Because they don’t collaborate with young people and have a negative perception of them, they get their idea of young people not by meeting them, but by suggestion. Their ideas come from the stereotype of a teenager; from music, movies, their fears, their imagination and examples of bad experiences. Adults tend to forget how they felt, and what they thought and needed when they were young. As a result young people are afraid of expressing their feelings, and their ideas to adults. This problem increases if a young person is from a disadvantaged group.

Some adults listen to us but don’t act on what we say This problem does not need any more explaining.

It takes a lot of commitment from a young person if you want to have your voice heard Young people need to learn to remain committed, in environments that are supportive and positive, that make them feel confident; environments where they are surrounded by supported people such as teachers, family and friends

How can these problems be solved?

Our Recommendations -Group 1 Organise weekly meetings for young people in schools and municipalities Let young people take part in discussions where children’s rights and obligations are decided Keep young people from lower social status informed about conferences and events (like this one) and give them the opportunity to participate Support young people to move around and meet other young people and adults

Our Recommendations -Group 2 Organisations for children’s rights must exist and support children’s opinion’s and protect their rights Adults must understand that young people are our future so their opinions are important and must be protected Children must be encouraged from adults because it is difficult for them to express their feelings. Discrimination shouldn’t exist in schools Adults should relate more and adjust according to the age of the children. They must listen correctly to the children’s opinions and remember how they felt when they were young

Our Recommendations -Group 3 More opportunities for children’s voices to be heard, such as conferences projects and organisations. During this, children should be kept up to date with this work Young people should be taught to participate from an early age to raise their voices, by parents, teachers, relatives, friends and government A regular report on how children’s opinions and ideas have been brought to action could be sent to every country. More youth councils should be created, which should be part of decisions The law should be used to protect children’s rights and to encourage youths to speak out. A special branch of the police should be created

Our Recommendations -Group 4 To build youth centres where young people can organise and communicate properly with young people and adults To support us more by being more open minded more respectful of our own ideas and by listening more To offer parents the possibility to participate in events like this where they can learn to understand us better so they can help us with our problems

Our Recommendations -Group 5 More collaboration between adults and young people. Interactive programmes and projects with things like roleplay. To get a better relationship Room for innovation in school. Better education for teachers, (higher salary!) Spreading the word and getting more information about youth participation and children’s rights Change the stereotype of teenagers Work on the laws, [to protect our voices] so that everyone follows them, make them more modern and up to date.

The Special Session There were many more recommendations that came from the special session. That we have not had time to include in this presentation Our group will pass these to Eurochild's participation group.

We have many things we will do ourselves to solve these problems

What we will do We have many actions we will take. Such as giving presentations in schools, sharing this report, using social media and creating a music group that writes songs about childrens rights and youth participation.

What do we want Eurochild and it’s members to do now?

LISTEN TO US AND ACT

Make changes to your own work based on our recommendations Take our recommendations to other adults in Europe and throughout the world who can make changes elsewhere In 1 years time - tell us what you have done with what we said and who you have shared it with

Thank you for listening?