Youth Council Workshop in Warsaw

WARSCHAU CONFERENCE 18th – 20th November 2010 by Liesbeth de Koning (former Rotterdam Youth Council chair, send to the conference as a administration representative)

The conference had the theme Identity. There were some people from the My Generation network: Dmitrijs from Riga, 2 people from Warsaw and Jared en Liesbeth from Rotterdam. The participants were all from Eastern Europe except the two from Rotterdam. The participants were split up in two groups: the youth representatives and the city administration representatives. There wasn’t any co creation between the youth- and city administration representatives.

Because I have the opinion that it’s always important to KNOW (feel, hear, see) your target group, I had the preference to join the youngsters the first day. The city administration representatives didn’t like this much because they were interested in the stories and experiences of Rotterdam. “Sorry: it’s al about CO CREATION!!!”

The youngsters worked on the developing of a project idea with as a theme Identity. There was a link with the organisation Youth in Action. This was interesting for the youngsters that have a certain kind future in mind. There where all different kinds of youngsters. Most of them were representatives from Youth Councils. The fact is that there are different kinds of Youth Councils. Some of them consist of students from higher education, some of them consist of local youth organisations etc. Sometimes this made it hard to understand each other: there was a variety of the interests and views of the youngsters. Some of the councils represented all the youngsters of their city, others represented just their own school, age-buddies etc. In my opinion a programme part of the conference about “understanding each other and the diversity of identities” was missing.

The city administration representatives talked about different kind of issues/problems of their own cities which linked with the theme Identity. It was striking that most of the city administration representatives feel a big “distance” between themselves and their target group: youngsters. Co creation with youngsters was a pretty new theme for them. The second day of the conference they got a kind of wake-up call: “Co creation is important to understand your target group and to get positive results!”. Next to that, most of the city administration representatives had a kind of negative mindset: “Thinking in problems instead of thinking in solutions”. I tried to turn both around in a positive way and the reactions were positive. At the end of the conference the city administration representatives concluded: “It would be better if we do it WITH the youngsters instead to do it only FOR the youngsters!!”

At the end of the conference the youngsters gave a presentation of the project ideas they worked on. The city administration representatives watched the presentations. Unfortunately there wasn’t that many interaction. My advise to the organisation of the conference is to let the city administration representatives also present their experiences of the conference and let them show the youth council members what they had been working on during the conference.

THE WARSAW STORY by Jared Hiwat (Rotterdam Youth Council chair)

From 18 – 21 November Jared Hiwat (Chairman of the Rotterdam Youth Council) and Liesbeth de Koning (former chairman) were in Warsaw for the workshops “European Identity – Let’s shake it”.
Youngsters from 9 cities in Europe came together in Warsaw. The youth council of Warsaw was 1 of the organisers of the project.

The workshops were a type of game that the youngsters could play. They could think about the future of Europe and it’s youngsters. The assignment was to think about a project that could be helpful to face the global challenges we are facing such as environment/social problems/economic problems etc. I am so proud to say that my group won the challenge because we came up with the best project!! I'll tell you all about the project at the next My Generation meeting.

Overall, it was a very good experience. This trip inspired both Liesbeth and me and we are convinced that this is a great example of a project that gives the youth a stronger voice in Europe. Next to that, it also empowers the network of youth councils in Europe. As the chairman of the Rotterdam youth council I think it brought a lot of ideas for the Rotterdam youth council. And there are also already some concrete plans!

We also got to see a lot of the beautiful city of Warsaw. I didn’t expect it to be so modern, but I even saw some places that are nicer than Rotterdam☺
And you know that I always have to check out the Nightlife in every city. So i did.. and I could write soooo much about it, but I’ll just say let the pictures speak for themselves☺