Inclusive children’s councils leading to democratic exchange

ended

The EU Strategy on the rights of the child (2021) has listed the facilitation of meaningful, safe and inclusive children’s participation rights in decision-making processes as one of its top priorities to be implemented or started by 2024. The strategy is based amongst others on a European mapping study (2021) on political and democratic life, which showed that only 4 out of 27 countries legally require governments to include children or young people’s opinions in decision–making. The mapping study points to children’s councils as the most prevalent permanent structure involving children. It does not, however, provide details on how children’s participation is ingrained in less formal contexts such as educational and leisure environments. Moreover, children’s councils tend to lack in diversity, and represent only part of the school’s population in terms of age, gender, special needs, cultural background and social class. With the final aim to improve the level of inclusiveness, sustainability and policy impact of children councils, GOTALK will use both existing and innovative mechanisms and strategies to establish children’s and youth councils on a micro level in school and out-of-school contexts. Four main actions will lead to this goal: • Continuous capacity building and stakeholders’ engagement; • Two pilots: one in the Belgian city of Antwerp and one in the Italian city of Reggio Emilia. Both will involve children between 6 and 18 years old and include their families, professionals working in schools, out-of-school care and leisure facilities, politicians, policy-makers, local and youth-oriented media partners and other relevant stakeholders; • Exchange of experiences and consequent validation of the methods used; • Mainstreaming, to make the councils impactful and ensure their continuity, beyond the local experiences. GOTALK chooses an early engagement of stakeholders at local, national and international level, including professionals.