ABOUT THE PROJECT​

The YUPAD project aims to enable young people to understand, practice, and influence participatory budgets across European cities. The project will develop the capacity building of educators and local authorities to implement participatory budgeting and increase civic participation among youth. Project objectives are to further knowledge of already existing practices in youth participatory budgets combining the research, policy, and youth work practices. It will create and put in place local policy mechanisms for participatory budgets and will develop capacity of educators to provide quality non-formal educational activities for young people on topics of youth participatory budgets. This will enable local authorities to put in practice youth participatory budgets using big data while addressing digital transformation.

 
The project activities will comprise Management and quality assurance (WP1); “Food for Thought”: Recipes, The Fair, The Cookbook (WP2); YUPAD Calculator and Training Curricula for Educators and Policymakers (WP3); Capacity Building for Youth, Educators and Local Authorities (WP4); and Policy and Sustainability (WP5). The impact will be directly measured on targeted groups during the project activities and indirectly on other stakeholders targeted only by communication, dissemination, networking, and sustainability activities. There will be a short impact during the project duration, which will also have effects in the medium and long-term (2 and 5 years afterward, respectively).

PROJECT OBJECTIVES ​

• Develop a comprehensive view of already existing grass-root and policy practices in youth participatory budgets combining the research, policy and youth work practices;

 
• Create and put in place local policy mechanisms for participatory budgets in order to ensure the effective sustainability and long-term impact;

 
• Develop the capacity of educators (youth workers, youth leaders, trainers, teachers) to provide quality non-formal educational activities for young people on topics of youth participatory budgets as part of civic education;


• Enable local authorities to put in practice youth participatory budgets using big data while addressing digital transformation;

• Ensure the sustainability of project results by developing the community of practitioners from across Europe in order to promote non-formal education and youth participatory budgets in the local communities, ensuring strong European context;

TARGET GROUPS​

Young people will acquire skills in participatory budgeting and civic engagement.

Educators (youth workers, youth leaders, trainers, teachers) will have the chance to gain knowledge and raise their capacity in working with young people on participatory budgets.

Policymakers will gain awareness of how to involve young people in decision-making through participatory budgeting, with the transferability potential to spread such experience into other spheres of participation on a local, national and international level, using Big Data.

The community of practice will benefit from the creation of a space to share their good practices and experiences, as well as capacity-building activities.