Wednesday, April 02, 2014

The third edition of the World Forum for Democracy, to take place on 3-5 November 2014, will address the challenge of re-building young people’s trust in democracy and re-shaping institutions to give youth real influence on decision-making in all social arenas. There are political parties, businesses, media organisations, schools, local authorities, NGOs etc. which make a genuine effort to involve young people in a meaningful way in decision-making. The World Forum for Democracy will highlight such examples and stimulatea dialogue between them in order to create a momentum for a wider take up and structural change towards a democracy where young people have a real say. The initiatives will be critically discussed at the Forum LABS.
Initiatives which clearly go beyond the tokenistic forms of “youth participation”, and offer a genuine opportunity for young people to drive change, will be particularly appreciated.
The Strasbourg World Forum for Democracy 2014 will engage with young people and with decision-makers and opinion-formers in a reflection on the patterns of youth exclusion and involvement and will explore new ways of engaging young people in re-visioning the democratic arenas of today.
Interested organisationsworldwide are invited to express their interest in presenting an example/initiativeenabling youth participation by answering the questionnaire in Appendix and sending it to forum_democracy@coe.int by 30 April 2014. Follow the link for more information: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/news/wfd/call2014.pdf