COUV ACTES - Psychologie communautaire

Community Psychology: Common Values, Diverse PracticesYouth participates in Santa Eulalia. An experience ofparticipatory budgets with young peopleby Ruben-David Fernandez 1 & Moises Carmona 2IntroductionIn the last decade, different experiences have been developed under the name of ‘participatory budgets’ indifferent municipalities of Catalonia (Terrassa, Figaro-Montmany, Santa Cristina D’aro, Rubi, etc.). The aims of allthese experiences have been to promote the direct participation of citizens in the distribution of the municipalbudget. The diversity of methodologies, experiences, goals, desires and budget involved is the commondenominator to all of them. Also, most experiences have been addressed to adults or to the whole population,which has resulted in a low participation of the youth in these processes. In order to deepen into the search ofnew channels to strengthen democracy, the involvement of young people in these channels remains a challenge,with many more failed attempts than successes.This communication is intended to provide the process “joven, participa en Santa Eulalia (youth, take part inSanta Eulalia)”. A unique experience in the context of Catalonia, developed in the municipality of Santa Eulalia deRonsana in the province of Barcelona, addressed to young people's participation only. Young people agedbetween 15 and 29 took part in the decision of one part of the budget of the Youth Area of City Council of SantaEulalia Ronsana. Santa Eulalia is a little municipality (6699 inhabitants in 2007) situated a 40 Km from Barcelona.This communication aims to present the methodology carried out based on Participatory Action Research (Ander-Egg, 2003). A process that lasted three months and was divided into four phases: previous agreements (startingthe process, constructing the rules, the limits and the different work spaces), Network analysis & raisingmultipliers (communication process, mapping where and how we could engage the young people and collectionand grouping of proposals), setting criteria’s for ranking the final proposals (application criteria and selection ofproposals for the municipal budget) and feedback of the results (and evaluation). We present the main results ofthis experiment, both regarding the results of the participatory process and the proposals on the municipal budgetfor youth. We also discuss the key learnings, insights, challenges and opportunities for youth participationdefining this process, parared to with other similar processes developed with other groups.1Social Psychology Department, Barcelona University (UB) & ETCS Cooperative (Barcelona, Spain). Contact: mcarmona@ub.edu orrubendavid@cooperativaetcs.org . More information: www.cooperativaetcs.org2Social Psychology Department, Barcelona University (UB) & ETCS Cooperative (Barcelona, Spain)50