Keywords

1 Introduction

The project Youth Forum was carried out in the town of Mińsk Mazowiecki, Poland. Its main objective was to involve young people in democratic activities in their everyday lives and to initiate their active involvement in the local community, which was absent before. The organisers hoped that it would help to establish a formal youth policy strategy for Mińsk Mazowiecki. Around forty young people aged between twelve and sixteen participated, most of them members of youth councils.

The project was organised by the Foundation for Intercultural Development EBU (Fundacja Rozwoju Międzykulturowego EBU, or in short Fundacja EBU). This foundation is run by volunteers and specialises in intercultural education and dialogue. It was founded in 2006 by Eliza BujalskaFootnote 1 in Mińsk Mazowiecki, around fifty kilometres east of the capital Warsaw. The main aims of its work are to educate, to increase awareness for other cultures by promoting tolerance, to initiate intercultural dialogue by connecting people of different origins, and to increase everyone’s understanding and awareness of their own culture and personality.

To achieve these goals, the foundation generally works on the promotion of volunteering abroad, on training and developing social skills, and it uses additional learning methods, such as non-formal education. It also functions as a Eurodesk Information Point to provide information about intercultural exchanges, universities in Europe, and volunteering opportunities. Besides, there are many different projects and activities, targeted at the entire local community or tailored to individual age groups, that are carried out by the organisation. Examples are intercultural meetings and events, volunteering projects as well as international and local youth projects. Fundacja EBU cooperates with several local institutions such as the city hall, the palace of culture, and local libraries.

2 The General, Local, and Regional Environment

In recent years, the quality of Poland’s democracy has dramatically decreased. Under the rule of the right-wing authoritarian Party of Law and Justice (PiS), the independence of the judiciary and the press are being undermined, resulting in weakened accountability mechanisms (Bernhard 2021). As a result, Poland can be described as a “competitive authoritarian regime” (see p.52ff in Levitsky and Way 2002). While Poland has been regarded as a poster child of the EU integration process, and while the EU enjoys a “relatively high approval rating amongst Polish citizens”, Eurosceptic parties thrive (Downes and Wong 2021). The dominance of the PiS party generally reflects religious Catholic, anti-LGBTQI+, and anti-immigrant positions amongst Polish society (ibid). However, there is also opposition to government policy. The PiS party faces resistance from civil society and lost its majority in the Senate—one of the two chambers of the Polish parliament—to the opposition in the 2019 elections (Bernhard 2021).

Economically, Poland’s GDP is, on the one hand, at the lower end of the range for EU countries and below the OECD average. On the other hand, it had one of the lowest male youth unemployment rates in the EU in 2019, and average female youth unemployment rates, but respectively these 9.6% and 10.3% unemployment rates are still far from full employment (OECD 2022a, b).

According to the project organiser, young people in Mińsk Mazowiecki are alienated from national politics, which is manifested in the feeling of not being heard by politicians. Besides, these young people are described as lacking future prospects, facing problems like climate change or mental health issues which emerged during the SARS-Covid pandemic. The ties to the EU are not perceived as strong. EU related projects, youth centres, or youth workers are still rare in Poland. As a result, Fundacja EBU aimed to create ties between the EU and youth.

3 The Project

The project Youth Forum started in July 2019 and ended in March 2020. As mentioned, its main objective was to initiate a structured dialogue between local youth and several decision-makers. Besides this, the project aimed at raising the awareness of the youth in Mińsk Mazowiecki for democratic values and practices in different social environments, like the home, school, and society in general, and at improving knowledge about democratic processes in terms of decision-making processes and the implications of certain decisions.

Thus, the project resembled other projects carried out by Fundacja EBU and aimed at conducting dialogue, for example, through the establishment of youth councils consisting of elected student representatives from each school in the city. At the same time, Youth Forum was the first project that directly aimed at bringing young people together with local decision-makers and experts, such as administration representatives, directors of schools and cultural institutions, to discuss the concerns of youth in the city.

As mentioned above, Fundacja EBU had already conducted various EU youth projects before. EU funding is an important source which allows the organisation to be financially independent from the city hall of Mińsk Mazowiecki. Because of its function as a Eurodesk Information Point and its experienced staff, the organisation already had excellent access to information about EU funding and was able to apply on its own. The project was funded by Erasmus+ and totalled 11,696 Euro. Since most of the organisers are working on a voluntary basis, most of the money went into the preparation and staging of the different events.

Since Fundacja EBU is a well-established organisation in Mińsk Mazowiecki, they already had connections with many key players in the city whom they could approach when organising the Youth Forum. Overall, around twenty-five decision-makers and experts participated. The young people participating were recruited from the youth councils. By opting for this selection of young people, the organisers wanted to increase awareness of how representative democracy functions: Youth Forum participants were elected by their fellow students to represent their concerns, and so it was up to them to take these concerns to other audiences.

To realise the above-mentioned objectives, the foundation organised various activities and some major events. For example, it offered meetings and workshops to prepare young people to meet with the decision-makers, followed by a conference and different panel discussions where the young people and the decision-makers got in touch and talked about the youth’s concerns. In the end, there was a closing meeting with the mayor and a presentation of the results of the project, followed by workshops for all young people from the city to disseminate the results of the conference.

4 Outcomes

According to the project organiser, the project was successful as it induced a specific change in Mińsk Mazowiecki: While decision-makers had not treated youth as a significant social group before, during the project they came together as equal partners. The Youth Forum allowed both groups to get to know each other, to start a relationship, and to notice the importance of listening to each other.

The organisers had the impression that the project managed to create a feeling of equality between the local decision-makers and young people that might be favourable for their future relationships. Initially, the exchange revealed the many stereotypes both groups had. The decision-makers considered young people as careless and not interested in politics, while the young people thought of politicians and experts as formal people they could never talk to. To challenge and decrease these stereotypes, it was crucial to plan the different activities and events in detail. Regarding the first meeting between the young people and the decision-makers, called a “banquet”, this meant, for example, involving the young people in the entire process of planning to make them feel like it is their meeting. The organisers let them choose the whole meeting environment, for example, in terms of the dress code or shared language, so they could feel confident.

Moreover, the groups discussed many important topics regarding youth, including the things the city has to offer young people, and the needs that are not being met yet. The participants also talked about specific solutions. An important aspect of this was to talk about places and space for young people in the city. In the end, the young people created several recommendations about issues that are important for young people in the city, about the need for action, and proposed topics they would like to continue speaking to the city about after the project ended. Important outcomes were recommendations for the culture department and the formulation of the need for a place in the city that they could use for their interests, like a youth centre. These recommendations were of great importance for further action.

In addition, the young participants and the politicians jointly prepared a declaration at the end of the Youth Forum expressing the decision-makers’ and experts’ intention to keep in touch with the young people after the termination of the project. So even if the project did not produce a strategic document on youth policy in Mińsk Mazowiecki as the organisers had previously hoped, this agreement laid the foundation to do so in the future.

After the project, it became clear that the decision-makers embraced the idea of integrating youth into their decisions and knew where to reach the young people, for example, through the student councils or the newly created youth centre in the city. The youth centre in Mińsk Mazowiecki, which opened in 2021, was almost entirely organised by young people who received support from Fundacja EBU. This suggests that the involved students also gained experience by participating in the project and felt encouraged to take the initiative themselves. In the Youth Forum, the need for a place for young people had already come up. Building on this, it was easier to talk about the subject later with the mayor and the city council.

According to the project organiser, despite these positive outcomes, the town still lacks a strategy on youth policy. Fundacja EBU considers such a strategy crucial for the continuous consideration of youth needs in local politics as it is more binding and gives a guideline for decision-makers. In order to achieve that, the organisation continued to encourage youth participation with a new project called Youth Lab which aims specifically at creating a strategic document on youth policy for Mińsk Mazowiecki.

5 Success Factors

Based on their work, the organisation identified several success factors for youth participation projects. They include choosing a motivated target group, offering interesting events, working with trained and experienced staff, finding the right balance between project organisation by its staff and the involvement of the young people, embedding the project in a general, long-term agenda, and using this agenda evaluating the projects.

Often, young people need a driving motivation to engage in participation projects. A success factor of the Youth Forum project was to build on the young people who were already actively taking part in civil society. Since participation is dependent on motivated participants, a student council was a suitable place to recruit people for the project. These students already had some experience in either representing their peers or discussing together, which was a solid foundation for Youth Forum. Additionally, Fundacja EBU could easily contact those students who were already organised.

The young participants were especially motivated by the chance to talk to the mayor, officials, and other decision-makers. The possibility to meet decision-makers, who usually would seem out of reach for the youth, provided the students with a direct channel to discuss their needs and wishes with those responsible for policy making. This shows that inviting political actors can enhance participation although local officials may be enough to convince the youth to be a part of the project. The project organisers believe that youth participation projects funded by the EU do not necessarily have to invite decision-makers and officials from Brussels to be interesting for the young participants.

Another success factor was the trained and experienced staff of Fundacja EBU. Since youth participation is a large and challenging topic, it can be tough for new organisations to plan events or to develop best practices. Having staff who have been engaged in similar projects increases the chances of successful projects and requires less time. Also, people with a good reputation in the context of youth participation will more successfully apply for EU funding and manage the project. The organisers suggest that new teams planning youth participation programs get in touch with other organisations to receive information on how to design a project, how to approach young people, and how to receive funding.

This experience helped in deciding when to involve the young people into the planning process. The project organisers argue that youth participation processes thrive when there is a good balance between the engagement of the project organisation and participants, with young people helping in organising events while the organisation has elaborate ideas on how to do projects. The Fundacja EBU got in touch with politicians and created the events and a long-term agenda. With the project Youth Forum, it started to involve the students in the more detailed planning, for example, during the planning phase of the above-mentioned banquet with decision-makers, which was helpful for getting them trained.

For Fundacja EBU, another success factor for doing the project was to develop a long-term plan for youth participation. In this sense, the Youth Forum was one part of a broader agenda and allowed the organisation to make small steps ahead. This way, the expectations of the participants could be managed properly, and the “small” achievements like breaking stereotypes could be fulfilled. Secondly, local administrations need time to plan and fulfil the wishes of the youth, and participation projects need to adjust to the pace of the administration and the schedule of decision-makers. Finally, youth participation can only be successful if it is sustainable and always open to new participants. For participation projects to stay on track, they need a foundation on which future projects can rely.

To design such a long-term agenda, the organisation considers it vital to measure the success of the individual projects. The success of the Youth Forum was assessed in light of its formulated aims. Since Fundacja EBU wanted to eradicate prejudices between the youth and officials, they talked to the participants after the event to evaluate whether this goal had been achieved. Both groups reported that they were surprised by their counterparts and that the decision-makers from the administration wanted to reach out to young people more frequently. Fundacja EBU can build on this foundation to continue with a more detailed and focused dialogue about the needs of the youth.

6 Problems and Wishes

According to Fundacja EBU, some problems occurred during the planning and implementation phases. They included the mobilisation of decision-makers, ensuring their serious commitment to the subjects of the dialogue, and keeping up the long-term motivation of young people to engage in the project.

The organisation reports that a first hurdle for the Youth Forum project was to convince the decision-makers and officials to participate in a structured dialogue with the local students. While prejudices existed on both sides, especially decision-makers and officials were reluctant, as they were sceptical about the benefits of talking to young people. This problem was reinforced by the fact that the Youth Forum was the first attempt to create a structured dialogue between the youth and officials. To tackle this challenge, Fundacja EBU used EU guidelines to emphasize the importance of youth participation in order to convince the local decision-makers. Besides, they relied on the staff of cultural institutions who wanted to get in touch with the youth, especially the mayor of Mińsk Mazowiecki, to convince other decision-makers to participate.

The biggest problem mentioned by the organisation is that there is no guarantee that the involved decision-makers or officials will treat the propositions made by the youth seriously. While final declarations are being forged by the participants, many ideas may not be transformed into policies, will be delegated to departments of the city hall to avoid responsibility, or will remain ignored. Fundacja EBU tried to avoid this by creating a level playing field which included informal language and casual dress codes during the banquet. However, it turned out to be difficult to establish “authentic” cooperation and dialogue between the youth and older generations without prejudices and to allow the ideas and propositions of the young people to carry weight. This is because many factors, such as finding a common language, are out of the control of the organisation and require cooperation between the participants.

Another instrument to tackle this problem and to increase the chance of making a political impact used by the project organisers was to prepare strategic final documents. They could serve as a guideline for decision-makers and officials, who often are not aware of the needs of young people. With the documents at hand, they do not have to get creative on their own, but they can simply identify the demands of the youth. Regarding youth participation, the young people transformed their ideas into practical demands and measures. The decision-makers were also involved in designing this paper to ensure that the ideas of the youth can be fulfilled. However, while this can help to mitigate the above-mentioned problem, another problem arises: formulating a strategic document may not be exciting for young people, and they can lose interest in the project.

The project organisers also struggled with the problem of ensuring the long-term motivation of young people, which is interlinked with the difficulty of making decision-makers available. Despite the initial interest of the young people, it was a challenge to keep up their motivation over the course of a longer time period, which clashes with the time schedules of decision-makers who often demand long-term planning. This includes scheduling meetings and having patience since political processes tend to be slow. To keep up the motivation of the teenagers and to schedule meetings with decision-makers with an extended workload, a balance needs to be achieved. However, the group of young people involved constantly changed because of their changing interests or because they finished studying at school in Mińsk Mazowiecki and moved to other towns. Thus, organisations need to be flexible in this regard.

According to Eliza Bujalska from the foundation, the EU could help to cope with such difficulties in organising youth participation. She demands that first, the EU budgets for organisations should be higher since this would give organisations more independence and freedom during the planning phase. Secondly, she argues that the EU needs a specific agenda on youth participation at the local level. Since youth work in EU member states like Poland is still “underground work” and this topic is being pushed aside, the EU can appeal to governments and municipalities to put an emphasis on youth participation. EU guidelines could thus put pressure on officials to organise youth dialogues or establish a closer relationship with young people.

7 Conclusion

Especially in times of rising right-wing populism, which has already manifested itself in the Polish government, organisations like Fundacja EBU are important in building up a young and democratic civil society. The lessons from the project described here, however, show that this is a lengthy process. Projects like the Youth Forum only lay the foundation since their primary function was to accomplish an initial dialogue between the youth and local decision-makers and to erase prejudices. Follow-up projects such as the creation of a youth centre or Youth Lab can build on this foundation. Since 2021, Fundacja EBU has also become a Europe Direct Point reporting on the structure, priorities, and policies of the EU. This includes workshops on the values the European Union is committed to. Different projects and measures like these are elements of a broader strategy used to enhance democracy in Europe.

As a result, organisations with a focus on youth participation need to plan with a long-term perspective. According to the foundation, the EU could help in this regard with more specific strategy papers and appeals to local governments to increase the relevance of youth participation. Besides this, it recommends cooperation between younger and more experienced organisations to overcome difficult starting conditions. Despite the hurdles and challenges involved in youth participation projects, Eliza Bujalska from the project organisation has continuously emphasised the importance of such projects and encouraged others to build up their own organisations and youth projects since this is highly rewarding.