The conference “Youth Participation Matters” was held in Lisbon Youth Centar, Portugal on the 11th of June. It gathered representatives of partner countries for the project Youth Participation Matters from North Macedonia – Center for Intercultural Dialogue, Poland – Europe 4 Youth, Belgium – ARS for Progress of People and Portugal – DYPALL Network as a main organizer of the conference. This event brought together the different experiences that were gather through the long term process of research of good practices and capacity building on youth participation of representatives of youth organiations, local authorities and youth workers.
Key note speakers for the conference was the Director of DYPALL Network Bruno Antonio which on his speech he emphasized The importance and challenges of sustainable structures of youth participation in decision-making processes at the local level. Part of the conference agenda was the presentation of key findings and best practices from the project partnering organisation. Three good practices were presented from Center for Intercultural Dialogue projects and other national projects that created a meaningful mechanisms for involving young people in the decision making processes.
Zenel Miftari participant on the Conference stated that “the experiences gained and the lessons learned through this conference will be of good use in my future career as an activist”
The end of the conference also marked the end of the Project activities of “Youth Participation Matters” which was 18 months long project which included a research on the models of youth participation on a local level followed by a training on how to develop participatory based projects.
After the end of the conference on 12th June a partners meeting was organized to evaluate the overall achievement of the project activities as well as to look into possible outcomes and follow up activities for from this project.
Florim REXHEPI