youth parliament project - International Debate Education Association

odies in Lithuania. The meeting took placein the Center for Professional Developmentin Panevezys and hosted about 150 participatingstudents, as well as members of thePresident’s office and the local media. Themeeting featured a debate on the resolution“Panevezys needs a university” and followedwith an open floor discussion amongst theparticipants and the politicians.Most recently, under the auspices of theYouth Parliament Project, a National YouthForum was organized in Kedainiai “Sviesioji”gymnasium. This event hosted 170 participantsfrom all around Lithuania and focusedon the topic “Students should have moreopportunities in school governance”.Youth ParliamentProject in SloveniaThe Youth Parliament Project in Slovenia isorganized as a pilot project held in 4 localcommunities that are municipalities acrossthe country. The municipalities were carefullyselected to represent different kinds ofcommunities – big, small, predominantlyrural and predominantly urban - some withmany schools and some with few schoolsand, of course, geographically distributed.No similar structure as the Youth Parliamentsexisted in any of these municipalities (or forthat matter anywhere else in the country).The choosen municipalities are: NovaGorica, Zree, Ormož, Ljutomer.Each local community has its own local coordinationteam that is chaired by the local cocoordinator(s).We encouraged bi-coordination,where one co-coordinator is an adultand the other a member of the targeted agegroup.The local co-ordination teams deal with promotion,contacts with local governments, election campaigns,promotion, media contacts on the local level, etc. Theyare assisted by the national coordinator, ZiP. Core andkey elements of the project implementation are decidedjointly, while some aspects may vary from one local YPto the other.The Slovenian Youth Parliament Project organizersrecently held their first session-seminars for theirelected parliaments in all four municipalities. The parliamentshave 9, 16, 14 and 13 MPs, so they are quitesubstantial, considering they are in fairly small communities.The first sessions of the new Youth Parliaments wereorganized as orientation seminars for the young MPs,the main objective was to get to know each other, learnabout the political and constitutional system in Slovenia(especially on the local level), learn and discusshow YP fits into the municipality as well as to adoptrules of procedure and elect the president and vicepresidentof the YP.One first session was held in the town hall (Zrece) withthe mayor present. Other sessions were held in schools.It must be emphasized that municipalities are interestedin the activities of these newly elected Youth Parliaments.Some of these Parliaments have received directinvitations to establish committees to participate inmunicipality projects as representatives of local youth.During the upcoming sessions, yearly work-plans willbe adopted and committees formed and from there onit will be the challenge to work towards implementingthose plans.Each local Youth Parliament, that is the elected MPs,will work according to its Rules of Procedure. Theywill identify core issues in their community to work on(e.g. improving public transportation services for youngpeople, initiating the opening of a youth centre, etc.).They will form decisions, seek the support of local organizationsand/or governments and at the end of the termthey will present a detailed report of their work, whatthey managed to accomplish and what still needs to beInternational Debate Education Association |41