From 24 to 28 February 2020, 15 youth NGO representatives and 15 municipal employees responsible for youth issues came to the European Youth Centre in Strasbourg to explore how to work together to improve youth participation at the local level in Georgia.
These highly motivated and committed participants attended a full training programme which helped them to understand each other’s realities and aims for youth participation. Sessions explored the notion of youth participation – why it is important and what makes it meaningful; workshops developed the participants’ skills in fundraising and participatory budgeting, and advocacy; and the week was an opportunity to discover the Council of Europe, its values and principles, but also its youth sector and its work, the European Youth Foundation, and the activities of its education and training programme.
The training was organised at the request of the Youth Agency of Georgia within the Council of Europe youth sector’s programme of assistance measures to member states. The course featured in the programme of the presidency of Georgia of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers, one of the priorities of which is to strengthen democracy through education, culture and youth engagement.
The participants are taking part in a pilot project being run by the Youth Agency of Georgia to promote youth participation in decision-making processes at the local level. As such, in the final session, the participants discussed next steps in pairs (municipal employee and youth NGO representative from the same municipality).
The Youth Agency of Georgia intends to organise similar trainings for youth NGO representatives and municipal employees in the future.
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