1St Meeting of the Think Tank on Youth Participation 3-4 April 2018 Tallinn, Estonia
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1st meeting of the Think Tank on Youth Participation 3-4 April 2018 Tallinn, Estonia INTRODUCING THE THINKERS Facilitator: Alex Farrow (United Kingdom) Alex supports civil society in the UK and around the world, attempting to improve the lives of communities through knowledge, training and expression. Building on his global work with activists and youth movements internationally, Alex is currently working at the National Council of Voluntary Organisations in England, supporting voluntary organisations to strengthen their strategy and evaluate their impact. Alex's area of interest are youth participation, policy and practice. He worked for the National Youth Agency and the British Youth Council, as well as freelancing extensively with organisations in the youth development sector. He has undertaken numerous research projects on youth participation, including with Restless Development, Commonwealth Secretariat, SALTO, and UNICEF. At Youth Policy Labs, Alex led on consultancy projects, supporting national governments and UN agencies to design, implement and evaluate national youth policies, through research, training and events. Alex is a campaigner - mostly on climate change, child rights and young people - and is active in UK politics. He is currently a trustee of Girlguiding UK and a member of the CIVICUS Youth Action Team. Airi-Alina Allaste (Estonia) I am professor of sociology specialising in youth studies. For the past fifteen years I have been investigating young people’s participation including political participation, belonging to subcultures, impact of mobility and informal education to participation etc. The focus of the studies has been on the meanings that young people attribute to their participation, which has been analysed in the wider social context. I consider defining youth participation extremely important, since it influences more widely how do we approach young people. Youth studies could have much greater importance to impact society if there would be more efforts to put results into practice. I believe cooperation between youth researchers, youth policy makers, youth field practitioners and young people themselves is important to find common understanding for further developments. Andras Farkas (Romania) I believe participation is mostly about ownership. The ownership of a young person within a community, a village or a city, a region, a country, a continent, the world. If a young person doesn’t feel he is part of a process, a decision, a place, an event, a process, a something, he/she will not take part in that something. I believe the main problem with youth participation at European level is that in a lot of cases it is considered just within the framework of the youth sector. Not the least, I believe that youth participation is in fact about Europe’s vision, Europe’s future in 20, 30 years. My work focuses especially on the field of social innovation through participation, entrepreneurship and culture, with a dedicated focus on youth and digital technologies. Since 2014, I am coordinating the Network of European Youth Capitals, an informal network of cities which held, hold or are nominated to hold the European Youth Capital title in the future. Under this framework a set of new tools and methods emerged, such as the European youth friendly cities quality label called 100% Youth City, or Com’On Europe, the European Platform of Participatory Budgeting for Youth. At local level, I am one of the co-founders and the strategic director of the PONT Group, an NGO established in 2009 in Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania, Romania which managed to become a 11-staff, 400k+ euro organisation from scratch. Anna Robinson (Ireland/Belgium) I am currently working as a policy advisor for Soraya Post, the first MEP ever to be elected to the European Parliament from an ideologically feminist and anti-racist political party, the Swedish Feminist Initiative. I advise her in her work in two committees, AFET (foreign affairs) and DROI (human rights outside of the EU), as well as gender and minority rights. Previously, I was working at the European Roma Rights Centre, and I stay involved in Roma rights as MEP Post is also a strong Roma activist. In addition, I am one of the co-chairs of the executive board of IGLYO, the International Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer and Intersex Youth and Student organisation. As co-chair of IGLYO, one of our key objectives is to empower young LGBTIQ people to become engaged in civil society, national and international politics and advocacy. We work hard to increase the visibility and highlight the diversity of LGBTQI youth identities. We aim change attitudes in society and influence decision makers on all levels by ensuring LGBTQI young people’s voices and experiences are present, heard and affirmed. We support and promote positive youth role models within the LGBTQI population and celebrate their diversity. Barbara Moś (Poland) Barbara is a trainer, youth worker and manager of the youth organization in Kraków: Association Europe4Youth. Moreover: educational tools designer (board games, LARPs, workshops on competences development); consultant for youth policies (president of counselling body in the field of youth in Kraków); youth information consultant (Eurodesk); freelance trainer (focusing on leadership programs, diversity, youth participation, intercultural competences, creativity and innovations, methodologies and tools of non-formal education); author of many publications on youth participation (manuals, videos, scientific articles); collaborator of Jagiellonian University, giving courses compensating competency gap occurring among students of political science department. Educated formally in the field of international relations, sociology and organizational management. Youth participation is my field of interest and source of inspiration. I see it as an open space for expression and exchange of views and opinions between young people and decision makers in any field - school, family, organization, local community, state, Europe. I see it as democratic, inclusive process based on respect for rights and co-managed by all respective parties. Bernhard Hayden (Austria/Sweden) My name is Bernhard Hayden and I am the outgoing President of Young Pirates of Europe, a federation of 7 European youth organizations working on strengthening the youth voice in the field of digital rights and Internet Governance. I have been active there since 2014 and worked together with young people as a workshop facilitator, outreach officer, and organizer of online consultation processes. I'm looking forward to contributing to the outcomes of this think tank as much as I can, and hope that we will be able to come up with sustainable structures, that allow young people across Europe to overcome the stage of "just being heard", by fighting against power structures and prejudices that usually lead to the youth voice being ignored. Carlos Teixeira (Portugal/France) Economist by training and entrepreneur by instinct, I am currently working at the Permanent Representation of Portugal to the Council of Europe, as an aspiring young diplomat, focusing in the fields of human rights, democracy and rule of law. Previously, I have worked at the European Commission, in the Cabinet of the European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas. At the age of 15, I founded, with two friends and with the support of the local Rotary Club, an Interact Club in our hometown, allowing youngsters to have an increased participation in their community. Some years later, I created the following level within the Rotarian framework – a Rotaract Club. I have also been Vice-President within NOVA Skills Association, a student-led organization which focused on the development of Soft Skills in the academic community. Earlier in my career, I was granted the Angelini University Award, given the title of Portugal’s Young Scientific Journalist and elected the 2013’s best Portuguese student on Mathematics by the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon. In September 2018, I will be starting my Master in Public Policy and Public Administration. Tackling the diminishing political and civic participation as well as the lack of trust in our governance mechanisms will only happen if we focus on youth participation. However, we need a democratic system that meets the evolving expectations and needs of individuals. That can only happen if we ensure that incentives are properly placed - namely through institutional innovation, data-based governance and education for citizenship. Corina Pirvulescu (Romania/Belgium) Corina is a professional & activist in the youth sector, dedicated to shape communities where young people are fully empowered to participate as equal partners decision-making and have the opportunity to reach their full potential. She has a vast experienced in working with a complexity of public policies and program management in youth sector, from local to international levels. Corina is particularly interested in models of youth participation and development of youth work. Over the past 14 years, she has volunteered and worked with very diverse youth-led and youth-focused organisations: from local and national youth council in Romania, to European and international youth networks. In advancing her passion for youth participation, Corina is a co-founder of the Think-Tank & Resource Centre ‘Social DOers’ and an IREX Fellow (US Dept. State funded) since 2015, when she worked with Chicago Votes on voter registration & education of