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Vancouver Working Group Discussion Paper

The Youth Freindly City

Chapter 3: The Capable City

How children and youth contribute their unique assets through participatory processes in the context of local government.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Youth Participation ... requires that youth should participate in political decision making on all levels, and young people must be enabled to organize themselves in youth NGOs, students unions, trade unions, political parties, and in the creation of mass media, in order to fully participate in political, economic, social and cultural life."

- Braga Youth Action Plan, World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth, Portugal, 1998

"Young people are in the best position to know what is needed and the best way to offer programs to youth. They keep the organization relevant and provide future leadership."

- Uzma Shakir, Executive Director, Council of Agencies Serving South Asians


The Habitat Agenda international policy document, adopted at the Second UN Conference on Human Settlements in 1997, advocates the importance of finding meaningful ways for children and youth to contribute their unique assets through participatory processes. In this chapter, we will focus on child and youth participation in the context of local government. In particular, we will examine:

  1. The inclusion of children and youth in government

  2. Key Indicators of successful child and youth engagement in local government

  3. Global examples of promising child and youth participatory programming in local governments

  4. Exploring community asset mapping as an exemplary model of child and youth participation in action

1

The inclusion of children and youth participation in government


As Louise Chawla, International Coordinator of the Growing Up in the Cities project, relates, "the inclusion of children and youth represents a new frontier in policy development." So why are people doing it? Aside from the generic answer that good public policy is contingent upon the involvement of affected stakeholders, there are some specific reasons why it is important to involve children and youth.

Using the example of involving children and youth in community planning processes, the research points to the following key benefits:

  • Supports long-run community sustainability: as the members of our society with "the longest future of any group, they [children and youth] direct policy making toward the long-term."

  • Develops a sense of belonging, and a sense of belonging has been shown to reduce the incidences of risk taking behaviour amongst children and youth.

  • Enables children and youth to contribute their highly localized expertise to community planning processes, drawing attention to changes in their local environments that might be missed by adults.

  • Enables children and youth to experience active citizenship at an early age, preparing them for a lifetime of active citizenship.

  • Provides children and youth with direct access to skills and attitudes around sustainability that affect their ability to act as stewards of the environment across the generations.

Having children and youth participate in local government offers a range of benefits, both for the individual child and youth, and for society as a whole.

How local governments can engage children and youth meaningfully

There are a number of areas in which local governments can involve children and youth, ranging from community planning and budgeting to environmental monitoring and job creation. These are 'content domains' (subject specific). Within each 'content' domain of municipal activity, there are also a variety of activities that create 'entry points'--places where local governments can engage youth. As described below each of these areas has immense potential as well as challenges.

Research and consultation: Most cities allocate at least some of their resources to public consultation. In creating child and youth friendly cities, engaging young people in research and consultation is essential to ensuring that the perspectives and voices of young people are heard. This research needs to be imaginative and sensitive. It is important to develop ways of involving children that build on their own strengths, and that pays attention to their own use of language, developmental level, and social reality. Depending on the situation, through participatory action research processes such as community asset mapping, or more formalized research by youth such as surveys, focus groups, and interviews, young voices are heard and their contributions legitimized for policy and research audiences. Research with children, however, remains challenging because of the constant need to mediate communication and power relations between adult and child researchers.

Governance: Governance refers to the structures and processes local governments use to make decisions about the allocation of resources. For young people, the most common types of involvement in governance are through advisory committees and/or through councils, working groups, policy teams, etc. Structures are put in place for young people that emulate and parallel to those of adults. These formal structures can be very effective in that they institutionalize child and youth participation. Having closer access to power children and young people have a greater capacity to have input and make change. Often, however, these structures are not provided with real power so that children and youth do not become joint partners with government or institutions.

Project design, delivery, and evaluation: Research demonstrates that the involvement of youth in the design and delivery of programs results in positive health and educational outcomes for youth. Peer-to-peer program models in particular are recognized as one of the most effective ways of engaging children and youth. Many cities are starting to engage children and youth in program design, delivery and evaluation, with varying degrees of success. More research, analysis and support is needed to apply existing good practices in programming to the similar challenges faced in engaging children and youth in governance.

Despite the growing body of evidence which suggests that child and youth involvement is beneficial and that local governments and institutions recognize a need to involve children and youth, the experiences remain anecdotal and piece-meal. The many promising practices identified here need further research, evaluation, and documentation in order to make the most of participatory program delivery and ensure more fluid participatory processes.

The next section will posit some indicators of successful child and youth engagement in local government. Following this review, we will highlight promising practices of engaging youth in local governments, organizations, and other institutions.

2

Key indicators of successful child and youth engagement in local government


A review of promising practices that involve child and youth engagement in local government points to key indicators for success. These indicators, while still preliminary, provide a useful framework for our review of participatory programming around the globe.

In the Capable City key indicators of successful participatory initiatives seem to be:

  1. Inclusion – special care is taken to "include girls, the youngest, and those from marginalized groups".

  2. Experiential learning – a range of structured and informal opportunities to contribute exist, which enable children and youth to "assume graduated levels of responsibility and independence in decision-making" (including participatory action research).

  3. Localization – activities are rooted in the lived experiences, spaces and places that children and youth inhabit.

  4. Adult-youth partnerships – strong networks and relationships with adult supporters; clear roles and decision-making spheres that allow each partner to contribute their unique assets; shared decision-making power where possible and appropriate.

  5. Institutionalization – local governments champion the inclusion of children and youth as routine practice; strong political commitment.

  6. Capacity-Building – concrete steps are taken to strengthen the ability of youth and adults to participate in the work at hand and work together.

Preliminary research suggests that government programs and institutions that incorporate and/or demonstrate these indicators are successful.

3

Global examples of promising child and youth participatory programming in local governments

The examples included below are a selection of projects from Vancouver and around the globe that are reviewed through the lenses of the key indicators of successful child and youth engagement in local government.

Inclusion

Many decision-makers struggle with ensuring that the voices of traditionally marginalized youth are heard and seriously taken into account. Two projects have been successful in overcoming this common challenge: (1) PACT project in the City of York, United Kingdom; (2) Bhima Sangha in Karnataka State, India.

PACT, City of York

Through the PACT project, youth are hired on as staff by the City of York to establish a liaison with the community of youth with disabilities. The youth are trained as researchers, and use a variety of consultation tools to engage youth with disabilities in discussions about a range of social policy issues (e.g. housing, transportation, employment). The data they collect is written up and presented to Council for consideration, giving youth with disabilities a direct voice to elected decision-makers.

Bhima Sangha (CWC), India

In Karnataka, India, the organization Concern for Working Children (CWC) helped to spark the development of Bhima Sangha, an association of working children with a current membership of over 20,000. This organization supports the continuous process of child participation allowing for child-centred development and interventions. The organization has focused on a range of issues to protect the livelihood, well­being, and dignity of child workers. For example, Bhima Sangha members found that a major reason for children quitting the school is that they have to fetch firewood from distance places, as far as 5-7 kilometres, after which they would attend school. Through a series of discussion at Bhima Sangha a conclusion was drawn that if they planted trees in the common lands, they could get sufficient firewood without going to far away places, and the children could attend school more regularly while also working. A request was made to the Forest Department to see tree samplings and authorization to plant in the common lands.

Though these programs have different operating environments, each share a commitment to marginalized populations and to celebrating the resiliency of children and youth. Provided with the capacity, marginalized children can identify their needs best, local governments needs to be receptive to meeting these.

Experiential Learning / Localization

Volumes of research point out that most children and youth learn best by doing. Research and experience also suggest that beliefs and attitudes about environmental stewardship are sustained in children who participate in hands-on activities in their neighbourhoods, as opposed to those who learn about the environment in a classroom. The advantage of experiential learning activities is that they build upon what is usually a highly localized relationship to space and place. Several projects engage children and youth in projects that immediately contribute to strengthening their local community: the Children's Parliaments in Slovenia; and Municipal School Committees in Peru.

Accion por los niños, Peru

In Peru, Municipal School Committees are organizations run by children and adolescents that operate throughout the educational system. In these communities, children and youth build their self-esteem, social skills and sense of belonging to the community with the support of teachers. The activities support and complement the curriculum in providing a holistic education for children and youth and strengthening the development of rights that respect values, citizenship and democracy. Currently, there are approximately 5,000 educational centers with municipal school committees throughout Peru supported by 7 organizations under the coordination of Accion por los Niños. Amongst the many examples of issues taken on by the committees is the one in Tarapoto that approached education authorities and companies to not close down a school for children with disabilities.

Children's Parliament, Slovenia

In Slovenia, the Children's Parliament takes place in schools, communities and at the national level. The aim of the parliament is to draw public attention to children and their voices and give children an active and participating role in creating their own future. The project promotes cooperation between many actors including civil society and the state, children from primary schools, youth mentors from high schools, and teachers. The parliament uses age-specific engagement techniques: for younger children; they are able to express themselves through art and other creative expression. For example, at a community parliament in the city of Ljubljana, a youth group performed a skit for their peers and adults as a way of presenting information on gender differences, healthy relationships, sexuality, and the importance of respecting one another. Older youth can express themselves through debate and discussion between each other and adults on matters that concern them, their families and their communities.

Each of the above models has developed local capacities to engage children and youth in governance and in program development and delivery. The outcomes benefit both the children and the community at large.

Adult-youth partnerships & Institutionalization

Strong adult partnerships are one of the hallmarks of projects that fully engage children and youth. While some projects had strong partnerships with adults in the community (service providers, children's aid workers, activists, business people) most identified having adult allies inside a local political institution, be that a School Board, municipal government, regional authority or national government.

These latter projects include the Youth Roundtable on the Environment, Canada; Municipal Youth Committee in Malindi, Kenya; Barra Mansa: City Youth Parliament Project, Brasil; the Bhima Sangha/Makkala Panchayats in Karnataka; the Youth Commission Ville De Gatineau, Canada, and the Vancouver District Student Council - District Budget Student Survey, Vancouver.

Youth Roundtable on the Environment, Canada

The Canadian Ministry of the Environment established the Youth Roundtable on the Environment (YRTE) in June of 1997, acting on the call from the Action 21 plan created at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. This roundtable has 12 representatives selected from among several national, provincial and territorial youth organizations, and advises the minister of Environment on issues key to youth. Their most recent consultation on child and youth friendly cities brought forward a broad range of recom­mendations on issues such as: making cities safer through the creation of more public com­mons areas; creating livable cities through the provision of micro-loans to environmentally sustainable projects; and increasing youth's knowledge and involvement in government through interactive ways such as theatre. The YRTE is an excellent example of how local issues as defined by youth can be brought to national government.

Malindi Youth Consultative Council, Kenya

The Malindi Youth Consultative Committee (MYCC) was launched on Malindi Youth Day in September 2002 by the Mayor and the Municipal Council. Also known as the "Junior Council", the MYCC is composed of an elected youth representative from each of Malindi's 12 wards. Trained and supported by a Kenyan NGO, the MYCC conducted a participatory youth survey that revealed most youth (including some MYCC members) had very little understanding of the municipal decision-making process and limited participation. To address this, the MYCC set up a Steering Committee of business leaders, municipal officials, central government representatives, religious and community leaders to provide guidance to the youth and start up resources (office space, computers, stationary). MYCC priorities include participating in the Malindi Council budgeting process and exploring ways to increase youth employment. The MYCC is now firmly embedded in the local wards, and has a strong relationship with Malindi City Council as they begin to engage youth in Malindi.

Barra Mansa: City Youth Parliament Project, Brasil

Barra Mansa, in the State of Rio de Janeiro, was the first Latin American city to include children and youth in municipal budgeting. Their 'Children's Participatory Budgeting Council' (CPBC) is an outstanding example of meaningful participation, in that Council created and resourced a participatory decision making structure and then gave them full decision making power over substantial resources ($125,000US). In the CPBC, eighteen boys and girls are elected by their peers to make budget decisions using a process that mimics the adult council. As noted in the UN Habitat Paper on Youth and Governance, "the process begins at neighbourhood level where everyone between 9 and 15 years is eligible to vote, and delegates go to district assemblies where the youth council members are selected. Some 6000 children and young people have been involved each year since 1998. The resulting projects have included tree planting, school repairs, drain and sewer repairs, improved playgrounds, security, and health services in low-income areas".

A similar participatory budget program is being undertaken by the Vancouver District Student Council in Vancouver, Canada. The Vancouver District Student Council undertook two budget surveys with a response of 4,000 and 14,000 students respectively. The students' opinions and suggestions were collated by the district and influenced the decisions made by the Vancouver School Board in allocating money.

Makkala Panchayats (CWC), India

In India, the working children's movement had strong adult partnerships from the very beginning with the NGO Concerned for Working Children (CWC). As time passed, they began to recognize the value of engaging municipal government and set up Makkala Panchayats (children's governments) in each of the local districts. Recognizing the importance of representing a diversity of children's voices, the children saw the need to ensure seats are reserved for girls and children with disabilities. Each Makkala Panchayat is supported by a Task Force, made up of local government functionaries and a Makkala Mitra, an adult friend assigned to every child who acts as an advocate and provides any necessary assistance. The Task Force and the Mitra have proven to be invaluable in ensuring structural links to the formal adult bodies that set village level policy.

Youth Commission Ville De Gatineau, Canada

The Youth Commission in Ville de Gatineau was established in 2001 for young people ages 12 to 17. It currently represents 14 000 adolescents. Early political support was essential to putting the Commission in place. Approval of a yearly budget, the appointment of three city councilors to the youth file, and the hiring of a staff followed this process. The Commission's mandate is to transmit to municipal council all recommendations regarding the planning, development and improvement of adolescent's life quality in Gatineau. Priority files for the young people currently include: recognition, culture and recreation, security, transport, work and voluntary work.

Each of these examples point to the need to nurture adult-youth partnerships, as well as the need for institutionalizing youth involvement into formal structures. They suggest that the more committed adult and children are in working together on strengthening relationships, the more likely the institutionalization process is to become successful. It can be especially challenging to strike a balance that reflects both respect for each perspective and effectiveness in bringing about change with children and young people. It is to be noted that this may be most difficult with younger children.

Capacity-Building

Several of the projects reviewed specifically outlined the importance of increasing the capacity of children and youth to meaningfully participate in local government. This can be done in two ways: first, by increasing the accessibility of local government and its structures to involve youth; second, by increasing the capacity of youth to be involved in local governance, and local government to work with children and youth.

Many municipalities follow a participatory method of adult-youth partnerships. This model underscores the challenge of mixing adult and youth "cultures" and the need to have a strong commitment from both adults and youth to learn from one another. One example of a successful adult-youth partnership is in Vancouver, Canada, where a team of youth workers, the Youth Outreach Team (YOT), is championing child and youth engagement as the way to do business.

Youth Outreach Team, Vancouver

The Youth Outreach Team is made up of four youth, hired on as city staff to move forward the Civic Youth Strategy, the City of Vancouver's 1995 policy commitment to supporting youth and involving them in decision making. Hiring youth as staff in 2003 was a new step for the municipality. With youth staff dedicated to improving youth involvement in the municipality, the City can now tap into their expertise and connections in the community to move forward three primary goals:

  • to build the capacity of city staff to engage youth meaningfully (in consultations and decision making related to "the development, assessment, and delivery of civic services that have a direct impact on youth")

  • to build the capacity of youth and youth groups to engage municipal government in order to advance various social agendas

  • to profile positive stories of youth achievement and celebrate the youth community

As a result of their work, in partnership with youth driven organizations, youth service providers and youth themselves, YOT members work to ensure that civic resources will be used as effectively as possible to support youth in Vancouver to lead healthy, fulfilling lives; youth will have an opportunity to take action around civic issues that are important to them, through local action and policy development; residents of the City of Vancouver (including but not limited to youth) will have an opportunity to witness and celebrate youth achievement.

So far the YOT has worked with the:

  • Mayor's Office to provide education and support around how to effectively engage youth in public forums

  • Planning Department on how to tap into the assets of local youth (using community asset mapping tool as described below)

  • Engineering Department on how to design and deliver interactive discussions on graffiti

  • 2010 Olympic Bid Corporation on how to engage youth in consultations and in decision-making

  • Secondary school staff on how to engage youth and local community members in discussing and improving school safety

The key factor enabling all of this work to move forward has been the commitment by the City to hire youth as staff, recognizing their expertise. In Vancouver, city staff are no longer asking "why" they should engage youth. They are now asking "how", and turning to the Youth Outreach Team and community partners like the kinex youth initiative and the Environmental Youth Alliance to answer those questions.

One tool that has proven to be valuable in supporting city staff to engage youth in consultations and decision-making is community mapping, a tool that is in use world wide. In Vancouver, the organization with expertise in this area is the Environmental Youth Alliance, which has worked with the YOT to make community mapping available to the Park Board and the City Planning Department.

4

Exploring community asset mapping as an exemplary model of child and youth participation in action

"Mapping helps us share the stories of young people, and encourages us to write new chapters in our lives."

-Katrina Ao, EYA Youth Community Asset Mapping Team

Community asset mapping is one of the many effective tools for engaging children and youth in local government. When most of us think of maps, we imagine professional drawings that identify and locate resources, territories, and peoples. These maps also convey institutional power and authority. Community mapping changes this perspective by locating a much different source of power: children and youth.

Mapping supports local engagement by helping children and youth chart their perspectives, ideas, needs and visions for the community.

Community mapping is an accessible tool of participatory action for local government that enables children and youth to create visual representations of themselves and their communities through images and text. Through mapmaking, information gathered is used to address and resolve specific local, social, economic and environmental challenges relevant to children and youth in their communities. Maps provide an accessible tool with which to gather perspectives and mobilize children and youth to influence decisions that impact their communities.

Community mapping includes the voices of children and youth

As Driskell, author of Creating Better Cities with Children and Youth: A Manual for Participation suggests, community mapping "creates opportunities for young people to voice their experiences, ideas and concerns, and encourage active listening from other community members, including other young people."

For example, at the United Nations Environment Program International Children's Conference on the Environment, held in Victoria, Canada, a group of 400 children aged 10 - 12 year from over 60 different countries engaged in community mapping to understand and articulate their collective voice. Working together in small groups, children began by literally mapping themselves: they traced an outline of one member on a piece of paper. Within the outline, they drew and described the one environmental issue most important to them and decided what project and action they would initiate in their own community. Outside of the outline they described what they wanted world leaders to do in order to address the environmental issue. The emphasis of this mapping exercise was to enable the children to understand themselves as a unique collective, separate, but also linked to the world community in general. This process further enabled the children to recognize their shared values, concerns, roles and responsibilities, as well as to articulate a clear set of demands to world leaders, presented at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development.

Mapping supports strong adult - child/youth partnerships

Community mapping creates strong adult-child/youth partnerships by providing young people with an opportunity to share ideas and collaborate with "enabling adults." Enabling adults are receptive to the input of young people and strive to ensure child and youth participation leads to important actions within the community. For example, in Halifax, a team of youth between the ages of 14 to 18, supported by the HeartWood Centre for Community Youth Development used community mapping to find out how to make their community a better place to live. After identifying the need to improve the grounds of a local school, J.L. Isley high school, the youth team invited members of the local community to help map out a plan for improving the school grounds.

Mapping is a critical tool of peer-led initiatives

Community mapping ensures children and youth adopt leadership roles, working with their peers to define their own needs and issues in the community. Mapmaking "starts with a 'clean slate' so that young people themselves can define their needs and priorities, and provide opportunities for young people to 'be in charge." For example, a group of Latin youth in Vancouver, Canada, supported by the youth Student Commission, a local youth organization, used mapping as a frame to organize themselves around an issue they felt needed addressing: the unrecognized language barriers in their community. In an entirely youth-driven effort, they mapped out which services were Spanish-speaking; what the services offered youth and how they could be best accessed, thereby identifying the community gaps and strengths in this area. Mapping provided a way to frame and address their issues in a way that was not overwhelming, resulting in a process that enabled youth to take full control - from identifying the issue, to collecting and presenting user-friendly, accessible data.

Mapping supports localized involvement of children and youth in their communities

Community mapping begins where children and youth experience their lives - both in terms of place and understanding. This process allows young people to build their local knowledge and act as co-researchers in determining the issues that impact them. For example, in Bangalore, India, over 600 college students participated in a comprehensive survey of 9 of Bangalore's wards in a project that combined the use of a new skill with their extensive knowledge of their home places. After receiving mapping training from Swati Ramanathan and Janaagraha volunteers, each group of students worked for approximately one full week to survey the use of every property as well as several street features in the wards. Their neighborhood maps will be used to guide the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) in developing the next Comprehensive Development Plan for Bangalore and will remain as a part of the official city records. Through mapping, youth were able to use their extensive knowledge base to have a voice in future community plans.

Community mapping relates to the local and everyday experiences of children and youth. Starting with their local area as a tangible focal point, young people identify the urgent needs and priorities that are most relevant in their everyday lives. For example, in Victoria, Canada, children aged 12 and 13 worked with facilitators from GroundWorks to map an assessment of the heath of their region during a conference set up by the local school district and regional health authority. The youth drew on their definitions and experience in their neighbourhoods to identify what places were healthy and what physical conditions contributed to healthier living, such as restaurants, trees, and basketball courts. Theses ideas were then assembled on a map of the region, enabling health authorities and children to see what the children valued, and what future health initiatives could be developed in tandem with the schools.

Mapping as a powerful tool of participatory engagement

Community mapping helps children and youth shape their communities, whether through localized, on-the-ground projects, or in contributing to the policy planning, research and setting development priorities with local governments and institutions. As a practical and applicable tool, community mapping embodies the participatory principles of listening to young peoples' voices, supporting child/youth and adult collaboration, supporting children and youth to assume decision-making roles, fostering critical awareness, and promoting local knowledge and skill sets.

As local governments work with community mapping, they often recognize the need to combine the tool with others such as focus groups or interviews. It may be that community mapping is good to begin a process, to identify children's perspectives. This could then be used to develop a survey or other formal methods. Central throughout is to remain true to the dynamic process of participatory action research to bring about change in the everyday life of children and young people to better meet their needs and dreams.

Conclusion

As the research and examples show, it is both desirable and possible to give children and youth a meaningful role in the development of human settlements. In the Capable City, local governments are tapping into the assets of all of their citizens in laying the foundations for an active, vibrant, engaged citizenry. These young citizens in turn build healthy, socially inclusive, economically vibrant and environmentally sound human settlements which in turn become the foundation for successful, sustainable cities and states.


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