This platform aims to develop spaces that favor youth citizens' participation, strengthening the role of these members in their public spheres. Through different projects, these young citizens will be able to express their ideas.
Problems and Purpose
Connecting young citizens with political issues is difficult. Since this large demographic is more often affected by problems in their local communities, their input and ideas for innovative proposals can tackle these issues. The National Youth Institute provides this space to empower young citizens in their communities.
Background History and Context
The institution in charge of developing and maintaining the platform is Chile's National Youth Institute. This public institution works together with the local government in developing policies that impact young citizens. However, the lack of participation and opportunities to voice youth's feedback on these issues was a problem that this platform aimed to tackle.
Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities
The supporting organization of this project is the National Youth Institute of Chile. This institution focuses on the design, implementation, and coordination of the politics of youth issues. They orient their projects and work towards youth from 15-29 years old. They coordinate public policies and develop programs that foster inclusion and social participation, the respect of their rights and the potential of their proposal, decision power, and responsibility.
Methods and Tools Used
This program took off with the implementation of their project "Ideas para mi Comunidad" (Ideas for my community). This allowed the community to publish their innovative ideas and members of their community could vote on them and provide feedback. To promote these ideas and develop them to turn into action, they included activities such as online training, specialized mentoring with local leaders, and local and national meetings with young citizens that participate in the program, as well as consulting on transforming their ideas into an executable project.
The selection criteria were based on the coherence of the idea, local relevance, motivation for being a leader, as well as the socio-economic context in which the idea develops, as well as the total number of votes received in the platform. A total number of 24 projects were set to be selected, based on the regions of the country.
The application for being part of the program included the following questions:
I. Diagnostic: Questions about the problem to be addressed
1) Which is the main problem that you look to tackle with your social project?
2) Which are the causes of the problem?
3) What are the consequences of the problem? How do these affect the community and landscape?
4) Characterize the population and territory affected by the problem
II. Plan of Action: Questions that will help in defining and materializing your project?
5) Which is the main objective?
6) Which are the specific objectives?
7) Do you have a group to work with? How many people are in your group?
8) Which are the specific activities involved in the social project?
9) How do you plan on using the resources to implement the social project?
III. Evaluation: Indicate the elements by which you expect to generate, measure and communicate the outcomes of the project.
10) What are the expected outcomes?
11) If you have to write a newspaper article about the implementation of your project, what would it be?
12) What actions will you do to communicate during the implementation of your project?
What Went On: Process, Interaction, and Participation
The impact at INJUV greatly increased with the program, and a total of 629 youth proposals were shared. From these, INJUV selected 327 for training in the previously mentioned activities. A total of 28,250 users signed up and voted 21,488 times with a total number of visits of 50,437.
