2022 Award "Best Practice in Citizen Participation"
16th Edition
Puente Genil: Building Citizenship from Childhood to Youth
Puente Genil (31,000 inhabitants) has been the scene of numerous innovation initiatives in participatory democracy from the local administration, betting on the presence of citizens in decision-making in the municipalities. It should be noted that the municipality was a national and international benchmark with its implementation of the participatory budget in 2001, one of the first in Europe.
Since 2007, the municipality has experienced the incorporation of the young population in participatory structures with the creation of the Local Youth Board. In 2015, the ages to participate in the municipal agenda are extended to groups from 10 to 12 years old with the implementation of the Ágora Infantil program. The network of youth correspondents has also been invigorated from the Local Youth Board and, this year, the Children's Council has been created. Every year some 250 children and young people from Puente Genil join citizen participation bodies and processes. The objective of this mobilization is to create a system of participatory processes and spaces for children and youth that build citizenship throughout the maturity cycle, from 10 years to 30 years. In this way, it is proposed:
Strengthen the democratic culture and civic knowledge of children and young people.
Open channels for their participation in local politics, allowing them to influence specific areas of decision and close to their interests.
Involve the school community, technicians and municipal elected officials in the task of training in participatory democracy.
The different processes of this system use different methodological designs adapted to each evolutionary stage. On the one hand, they highlight the Children's Agora inspired by minipublics, which addresses a political decision in 5 phases: information, dialogue with the City Council, diagnosis, deliberation and decision. On the other hand, the Local Youth Board with its open assembly structure that meets monthly and debates, decides and evaluates the youth actions it carries out with a budget donated by the City Council for this purpose.
This innovative system of citizen participation for children and youth is based on the recognition of diversity among the younger population, usually treated in a homogenizing and simplified way in citizen participation practices. Both the Children's Agora and the Local Youth Board have a binding mandate in their respective fields of action. The Local Youth Committee has been innovative due to its ability to generate and stimulate a youth network (30 associations) and train its members to obtain complementary funds to those of the City Council. Ágora Infantil innovates in the inclusion of profiles less likely to participate in groups, through the intersectional approach and ludopedagogy.
The Child and Youth Participation System has resulted in an increase in skills and empowerment of the youth of the municipality, as well as a clear impact on the local agenda. Hand in hand with it, the associative fabric has been strengthened and political cadres of the municipality have been formed.
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