Digital Tool – Com’ON CITY
Short description of the tool
Com’ON City – participatory budgeting for young people is a participatory process through which young people propose ideas in groups, people of the community decide which ideas to support and young people become actors of change while implementing the initiatives with the support of the local youth ecosystem. The tool is already implemented in several Romanian and European cities.
Challenges Addressed
There is still an untapped potential in young people not participating in any organisations but having positive attitude towards community engagement. Young people lack knowledge, skills, human support, and funding for proposing and implementing community action. Young people from different micro-communities and different parts of the metropolitan area do not have the same access to supportive environments.
Furthermore, urban communities are most of the time not fully aware about the needs of young people and the challenges they are facing. There is an overall challenge in convincing the community that young people can be enabled to act through the community’s validation and participation. Validating ideas of young people and community participation in their initiatives creates trust towards them which leads to overall trust in the community.
Key features and benefits
Com’ON City proposes cities to implement participatory budgeting for youth, a process through which young people can propose ideas for the community and receive funding from public sources (municipality) based on the decision of the local community. Com’ON City develops a process based on digital tools which facilitate easy access for young people and other members of the community to this public financial decision-making platform.
Com’ON City proposes a three-dimension approach.
- YOUTH
Through Com’ON City, young people can identify and solve community challenges using improved social and life competences and practical experience. - COMMUNITY
Through Com’ON City, members of the community become more aware of young people’s needs and challenges, and more involved in their actions. - ECOSYSTEM
Through Com’ON City, partners and stakeholders involved in developing such a process can better cooperate and innovate, share resources, and make evidence-based decisions in providing solutions to the needs of young people.
Impact
Through the working of Com’ON City, any European city can become an inclusive, sustainable and forward-looking social environment which supports young people in forming resilient teams, groups and organisations, through which this generation improves its own wellbeing, learns life skills, creates better own perspectives and contributes to a higher overall community engagement and participation of its generation in social life.
Digital Tool – Youth Thematic Years
Short description of the tool
Youth Thematic Years serve the purpose of providing special attention to an issue of interest or concern for young people in a micro-community, urban or rural area, region, or country. YTY is a fully participative process through which young people propose and decide on the topic while for a calendar year, actors of the geographic area work on developing projects, policies and measures concerning that topic of interest.
Challenges Addressed
There is a problem that decision makers and public administrations of cities, regions and countries try to solve problems addressing all needs while there aren’t enough resources of time and money to address all issues of concern. Developing a participatory policy and mechanism through which young people themselves bring up and decide on the most important issues of interest or concern for them allows one to concentrate resources in tackling that issue. The timeframe of a year is relevant because budgeting and budget executions are usually delivered on a calendar year basis.
Key features and benefits
The process goes through several steps which lead to the decision regarding the topic of a specific thematic year:
- Theme proposal stage: young people of any age can propose any idea or topic providing a simple argument for the reason of the proposal. This stage happens online.
- Theme merging and final proposals stage: through a facilitated process, young people interested in being involved work together through an interactive workshop which results in a final list of 3-6 final proposal which are submitted for voting. This stage happens in person with additional online features.
- Public voting stage: young people of any age, living, studying, or working in the city can participate and express their choice from the shortlisted final proposals. The final theme is the result of the voting process after final rankings are announced. This stage happens online.
- Implementation stage: actors of the local/regional/national youth ecosystem act upon implementing projects, proposing, and approving policies on the theme decided by young people. This stage happens through various means.
Impact
Following multiple years of implementation of thematic years, young people will become accustomed that their voices, concerns are listened to, and that they have the real opportunity to influence policy decisions and action of local/regional/national actors of a youth ecosystem. It develops an environment of trust between decision makers and young communities they serve.
