National Workshops Italy, 19/04/2023, WP8
In April 19, 2023, two Workshops were held for the “Digital Civic Participation” project at Il Pertini, Cinisello Balsamo in Italy. The project is co-funded by the European CERV program and aims to innovate the process of civic education of young people and increase their participation in the choices of their community.
The final result of the project will be the creation of a HandBook with the collection of e-participation tools available on the territory of each project partner (Greece, Romania, Poland, Lithuania and Italy), with practical examples to improve youth civic participation.
The two workshops had a twofold objective: to educate, train and empower young citizens and municipal employees on e-participation and e-democracy tools on the one hand, and to identify local issues and challenges in order to find solutions together on the other.
The first workshop involved the co-participation of young people and municipal employees, for a total of 30 participants. After giving a brief presentation of the project and the various e-participation tools proposed by the Partner countries, the youth were divided into two groups and given the opportunity to discuss issues related to digital participation, then identifying at least two problems related to e-participation with related solutions among the tools available.
In a second stage, the youths presented their thoughts on their inclusion in their city’s decisions, proposing how they would like to participate in city life. At this step, employees had the opportunity to listen to the issues raised and build on the observations developed by the youth in their area.
The second workshop dedicated to 15 municipal employees was held in the afternoon. At this stage the employees were tasked with commenting on the issues raised by the young people and assessing the feasibility of the solutions they proposed.
All participants showed interest and involvement in the topics touched upon during the workshop.
The next step of the project will be the Hackaton to be held in June in Athens. If you want to stay updated, keep following us!
If you would like to read more, download the following report: