City Council adopts "Youth participation in Chemnitz" concept
At its meeting today, the Chemnitz City Council approved the "Youth Participation in Chemnitz" concept and its implementation, subject to the availability of budget funds.
Successful youth participation enables young people to experience and practise democratic skills in a real-life context. These include, for example, becoming aware of their own interests, articulating and contributing them, getting to know other interests and points of view and negotiating compromises as well as realising ideas together and taking responsibility.
Understanding the living environment as something that can be (co-)shaped democratically and experiencing one's own commitment as positive and effective contributes to tackling change processes in a democratic way. Conversely, supposedly simple and populist "solutions" to challenges that arise may seem less appealing.
In this sense, youth participation is not an end in itself, but a field of learning and a prerequisite for democratic co-operation between young people and adults.
The concept sets out specific recommendations as an important basis for the implementation of youth participation in Chemnitz:
- Continuation of the Youth Participation Working Group as a permanent working and evaluation body
- Offer youth consultation hours to get into dialogue with young people
- Establish a youth participation centre to firmly anchor the topic of youth participation
- Establish a youth office as a contact point for young people on the topics of youth participation and project funding
- Continuous recording of young people's participation needs, ideas and topics
- Children's and youth neighbourhood rounds with their own fund as a measure for active youth participation and the promotion of democracy
- Ideas competition for the youth-orientated design of the city of Chemnitz
- Youth participation in construction projects as a standard for a youth-friendly Chemnitz
The concept for youth participation in local political events was developed by a working group from August 2018 to February 2019. Parallel to this process, a qualitative survey was conducted with Chemnitz experts from the field in order to gain in-depth experience in the area of youth participation. The concept was also developed in close cooperation with the Office for Youth and Family Affairs by the Saxony Child and Youth Participation Service Centre.