From the 4th to the 8th of December, the European Youth Roundtable was organized by the partnership of the YouPart project at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium. The participating young people, originating from six different European countries, had the opportunity to present their demands on various important fields of public life. In particular, young people from Austria, Greece, Italy, Serbia, Slovenia, Serbia, and the Czech Republic, after looking into the causes and highlighting the problems they identified in the fields of health, the LGBTQIA+ community, women’s rights, multiculturalism, school education, youth work, sports, economy, environment, and also migrants and refugees, they came up with concrete demands on them, which they presented on Tuesday 6 December 2022 to MEPs and representatives of other European entities.
More specifically, the mobility lasted three days. On the first day, the participants met for the first time after the finalization of their demands and performed rehearsals for their presentations. On the second day, the participants met in a room at the European Parliament, where they made their presentations by group and field of interest to the MEPs and stakeholders. They were followed by a short discussion with them on the issues raised. On the third day, the participants met again to reflect on the results of the previous day’s meeting in the European Parliament and to receive and provide feedback on their efforts. At noon, on the same day, they were taken on a guided tour of the city of Brussels’s main sights. The day ended with the last meeting of participants from all partner countries and the presentation of their certificates of participation in the program.
This activity completed the cycle of meetings of young people from the above-mentioned European countries in the framework of the European project YouPart. The participants expressed their satisfaction with the result of this six-month work and the hope that their demands will be met in the future.
About the YouPart project
YouPart, a 30-month Erasmus+ project, aims to encourage young people to become active citizens, help prevent social exclusion, and improve the impact of policy decisions on young people. It also aims to strengthen the political participation of disadvantaged young people in 6 countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans in three phases, providing opportunities to identify and formulate demands and wishes (Participation), discuss and link them transnationally (Connection) and express these demands to politicians at different levels of decision-making (Empowerment). The project is implemented by a partnership consisting of organizations from Austria (Südwind, the coordinating partner, and BOJA), Greece (KAINOTOMIA and InnovED), Italy (WeWorld and Associazione Culturale Oltre), Slovenia (Drustvo Humanitas-Center za Globalno Ucenje in Sodelovanje and Zavod Mladinska Mreza MaAMa), Serbia (Timocki Omladinski Centar and Narodni Parlament) and the Czech Republic (Ekumenická akademie and Spolek zastáncu detskych práv).
