youth parliament project - International Debate Education Association

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ing of what role the EU should play in thelives of European citizens (especially youngpeople) and how they can influence the decisionmaking process at the European level• Developing skills of young people, especiallythe skills which will enable them to influencethe decision making process (advocacyskills) as well as their vocational skills (communicationskills, language skills, organizationalskills, and cooperation skills) in orderto improve their chances of employability andprovide a better start to an adult lifeThe main goal of the project is the developmentof a replicable model for increasing studentparticipation in partner countries andenhancing long term co-operation betweenschools, government and the civil society.The project’s outputs will be replicable andconstitute models of good practice, to beemployed by different categories of users.These categories include: teachers (trainingand curriculum), youth workers and socialworkers (training and good practice), localgovernments (networking and exchange ofgood practice), NGO personnel (trainingand networking). Thus, the trainings conductedunder the auspices of the YPP includethe following:• Teacher trainings (youth parliamentarismand debate) will be based on project learningapproach and deliberative educationmethodology. The trainings will emphasizea hands-on approach and provide possibilityfor peer-dialogue.• Trainings for teachers, youth and socialworkers working with disabled and disadvantagedstudents will employ special pedagogies.• Advocacy trainings for young people willbe based on project learning approach anddeliberative education.• International conference will be organized based onproject learning, deliberative education and inter-culturaleducation.• Two guidebooks (public debate and youth parliamentarism)will employ project learning and debate methodology.They will provide a lot of examples and specificguidelines on how to establish and support youth councils,youth parliaments and organize public debates. These publicationswill contain full acknowledgement of any fundingsupport forthcoming from the Socrates programme (as willalso be the case on the proposed project web-pages).The target groups that will ultimately benefit from theproject are students in five partner- countries (Bulgaria,Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia and the UK) aged 13-19.The groups will include students from ethnic minorities,immigrant students and students with disabilities.The project will reach out to Roma youth in Bulgaria andRomania (it is estimated that it will directly involve 200Roma students in each country during the 2 years of project’sduration).In all five partner-countries, the project will reach out todisabled students (it is estimated that an average of 100–200 disabled students will be affected per partner country).According to the estimates by the Essex CountyCouncil which has successfully implemented the YouthParliament project in its own locality and has cooperatedwith other local authorities in the UK, about 5-10% ofeach partner country’s student population (aged 13-19)should be involved in the project (at different capacity:either through participation in exchanges, online projects,debates and forums, elections, etc.).Apart from the local developments of the Youth ParliamentProject activities in individual countries, which are shortlydescribed below, the project gave birth to a few usefulmanuals that are being used to train youth. Marcin Zaleskihas developed a Public Speaking Training Module and anIntroductory Debate Training Module that has been usedby countries participating in the project. You can accessthe material for both of these trainings by going to http://www.idebate.org/ypp/teacherresources.aspInternational Debate Education Association |39
YPPApart from providing resources for teachers and trainers,a collection of resources for students has been prepared.The material includes IDEA Public Advocacy Training, adescription of the Young Essex Assembly, and a resolutionon Youth Against Violence and Substance Abuse preparedby the Lithuanian Forum participants. All of these documentscan be found at http://www.idebate.org/ypp/studentresources.aspThe following are short overviews of the YPP activities inparticipating countries. You can read about some of theseevents in more detail in the following articles. If you needupdated information on the activities or participants of theYouth Parliament Project, you can always check www.idebate.org/yppYouth Parliament Projectin LithuaniaAs Lithuania already had existing youth parliaments, themain goal of the project was to improve the skills of youthparliament members as well as the communicationbetween them and local and nationalauthorities.Lithuania organized its first Youth Conferencein June 21 – 25, 2004 in the TrainingCentre ”Dainava” in Druskininkai. Therewere 50 participants present at this training.During this training there were several sessionsthrough which students had to acquiredifferent skills and abilities. The sessionsincluded interactive trainings in effectivecommunication, argumentation, the studyof the state of youth in Lithuania, and preparationof election speeches for simulatedyouth parliament elections. The conferencesended with an open discussion between theparticipants of the conference and the LithuanianMinister of Health, Juozas Olekas.In November, a meeting was organizedbetween the youth and the Lithuanian President,Valdas Adamkus in order to improve thecommunication between youth and political40| International Debate Education Association
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youth parliament project - International Debate Education Association

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