You(th) decide III.

On 27.6.2019, the third local educational meeting You(th) Decide! took place, continuing to strengthen the idea of civic engagement and participation in public decision making amongst youngsters from the Košice district. During the previous two meetings based on non-formal education, we managed to connect the active youth, representatives of local organisations working with youngsters, representatives of school councils, youth parliaments, academic senates and municipality office of city of Košice. Together with the participants we defined civic participation, determined its most common forms and explained the levels based on the ladder of participation of the sociologist Rogger Hart. The methods of non-formal education enabled us to link the theory with experiences thanks to which the issue will stay in our minds for longer. During the meetings we identified the needs of young people as well as the problems that young people in our district perceive. We turned to the local Košice municipality with these information and a plea to take patronage over this effort and an invitation to the third meeting where possible solutions of the identified issues could be discussed.

The chairman of Košice municipality, Rastislav Trnka himself, took patronage over the meeting, which the deputy of the chief of the chairmans office, Martina Kožárová, the director of the Kočice municipality bureau Juraj Ďorko and the head of the organisational branch of the Košice municipality Ana Heribanová personally attended. Organisations working with youth were represented by Marián Švekuš (RMKK), Jakub Szepeszgyorky (RCM Košice), Katarína Hvizdová and Martin Kuľha (EDUSTEP), Eva Kuráňová and Ivan Rosa (Youthfully Yours SK).  Representatives of academic senate UPJŠ, the association of medics of Košice, Slovak association of students and absolvents of psychology, Slovak debate association and several school councils and youth parliaments also participated in the third meeting.

After the initial recapitulation of the progress of this educational project and short kahoot quiz, we began the discussion, showing our personal stance to the topic of youth participation. We did not ignore even the harder questions, like whether while identifying the needs of young people the initiative should come from the local authorities or rather from the youth itself, or whether youth is also responsible for the contemporary state of youth politics in our district. After fruitful exchange of opinions, we begun to look at the afore identified issues of youth. Together we specified their possible causes and consequences and suggested explicit, measurable, time-framed solutions and steps we must take to reach them. Working in smaller groups and so called ‘world café’ enabled all the participants to express their opinion on all identified issues. The final presentations and discussion showed, that every party involved wishes to be part of the solution realization: the municipality, third sector and most importantly, the youth, to whom the quality of life in their region is not forgotten.