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Dutch National Youth Participation Day

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11 February 2010
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On the 10th of February 2010 the Dutch national youth participation day was organised by YouthintheCity and Your World (=Rotterdam European Youth Capital Organisation). Many professionals from comprehensive schools, youth councils, neighbourhood organisations, officers, youngsters and other people related to youngsters or people that felt socially responsible to share their opinion with others were present. When all the members had arrived the conference was officially opened with enthusiastic drum beats, dances, films and speeches in order to prepare the guests.

By Farah Ramzan, intern for the City of Rotterdam/My Generation project
Together with my colleague, Esther Sprangers from the URBACT project ‘My Generation’, we signed up for three kinds of workshops: NJR Academy (NJR=Dutch National Youth Council), Youth in Action and Youth participation. The first workshop, NJR Academy focused on how to improve youth participation on different levels. During the workshop subgroups were made that tried to determine what preconditions are required to add value to youth participation. The second workshop, Youth in Action was a very informative workshop. The orator explained the key elements of the organisation ‘Youth in Action’ and after that he clarified what process financial contributions have to go through in case someone would take interest. Finally, the third workshop ‘Youth Participation’ concentrated on the five steps of how to reach effective participation among youngsters:

1. Determine a clear goal

2.Your activities should contribute to your results

3.Clear measures should be made

4.Do not work individual but cooperate

5.Do not fear to criticize each other.

After this workshop had come to an end all members gathered in the auditory again. There were drinks, snacks and speed dating in order to close the afternoon festively. However, since it had been a long day for Esther and me we decided to leave after a couple of drinks and close our afternoon earlier before the speed dating started.

Briefly said all the workshops were effective although some were more creative than others. They have provided additional information that might fill the lack of information for those who feel involved and do not know sufficient of subjects among youth participation. But next to this, and in my view more important, the workshops at least broached new topics that people can take home and think about.

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