Young people have their say on education, LGBTIQ+ rights and more

Eurochild supported 60 children and young people from all over Europe coming to Brussels to meet Members of the European Parliament, as part of the YouPart (Youth Participation) project

Running throughout the European Year of Youth 2022, the YouPart project aims to promote the political participation of children and young people.

The project is particularly targeted at young people whose voices are usually not heard in society or politics, due to lack of access to political participation. The 60 participants are between 13 and 23 years old and come from Austria, Czechia, Greece, Italy, Serbia, and Slovenia. For example, most of the children and young people from Czechia are living in insititutional care, while the rest had already experience in the Parliament of Children and Youth of the Czech Republic and in regional parliaments of children and youth.

Throughout the duration of the project, these children and young people engaged in politics, reflected on their concerns and developed their political ideas and demands for decision-makers at local, national and European level.

During the yearlong preparations, children and young people met in person three times in Vienna, Prague, and Brussels and formulated a set of demands addressed at Member of the European Parliament (MEPs) and covering 10 different areas affecting them in their daily lives.

Earlier in December, these demands were then presented during a roundtable to six MEPs that commended their efforts and answered questions from the children and young people. MEPs also committed to promoting the most serious demands and initiatives among their colleagues in the European Parliament, according to their own expertise.

Ensuring children have a space to speak up and share their opinions is at the core of what Eurochild works on, therefore we were glad to be able to support the children and young people during this important event. With this in mind, we will keep monitoring the activities of the European Parliament and we will continue to advocating that MEPs fulfil their commitments to the children and young people present when it comes to child participation and child rights mainstreaming.