Mr Odd Anders With, Norwegian State Secretary, Ministry of Children and Family Affairs

Council of Europe Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth

Thessaloniki, 7 - 9 November 2002, Greece

Intervention in the Round Table on "The promotion of active citizenship, participation in society and pluralistic democracy"

Mister Chairperson,

Active youth participation in society and development of pluralistic democracy are basic pillars in a national youth policy. In the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child it is stated: "The child has the right to express his or her views in all matters affecting the child, and the child's views shall be given their due weight". The Convention has put child and youth participation on the agenda in many countries. The Council of Europe has for many years been involved in youth participation in society. The youth sector of the Council of Europe is in fact based on active youth participation through the application of the co-management principle.

In the UN Convention children is defined as everyone under the age of 18. At the same time UN has defined youth as the age group from 15 to 25. We have an overlapping in age of whom we sometimes call children and sometime call youth. In the context of the Council of Europe youth sector I would recommend to put more emphasis in the future on the situation of young people from 13/14 years of age and older. We are often forgetting the special challenges and problems facing "the older children" or "the younger youth".

Youth participation, co-operation and youth influence has been discussed for years. There has been numerous international and national studies, conferences and seminars on the subject. The Council of Europe has been in forefront in developing this issue. I think it is correct to say that we do not miss the theoretical basis for dealing with the question. There has also been developed various models and methods for implementing youth participation, co-operation and youth influence in practical daily work on international, national as well as regional and local level. I believe that these various models and methods have to be based on and adapted to national and local conditions. I do not believe in one universal model, which can be used everywhere in Europe or in a country. We have to promote a variety of alternatives. We have to exchange information on how the alternatives are functioning in the practical world, and we have to let those with the local experience chose the method or model they believe in.

In my Ministry we are aware that a lot has been done in other countries and internationally in developing principles and methods of youth participation. We had however an impression that very often principles and methods had been developed by adults and "older youth". We therefore felt a need to involve the "younger youth" on their own terms. We wanted to know more about their visions. We wanted to invite young people to consider and describe what they felt were obstacles and barriers to real youth participation, and we wanted them to discuss future strategies for a practical implementation of their ideas at local level.

This is some of the background for taking an initiative to host a European Conference on Child and Youth Participation in Society in Norway. We decided to locate the conference to a medium large city, Porsgrunn, situated south-west of Oslo. Porsgrunn has a long experience in practical youth participation in the municipality. They have developed an interesting and well functioning model for participation, which has been met with great interest in many European countries. In order to secure a programme and content of the conference to be on the terms of young people themselves, we invited the local youth council in Porsgrunn to prepare the conference together with representatives of the National Youth Council and youth councils in Oslo.

On the basis of the preparation of the youth themselves, we invited young people from all the member countries of the Council of Europe. The conference took place from 9 to 12 August and almost 90 young people from 30 different countries participated. The average age was less than 21 years, and I think we succeeded in recruiting a real young group of people. We also invited representatives from Ministries responsible for youth to participate in the discussions and observe the conclusions from the youth.

We have brought with us copies of a preliminary report, including a summary of the viewpoints, proposals ands conclusions of the youth. I will recommend you to look into the document and study the possibility to use some of the ideas in your further work with this subject. I would like to point out some elements, which I think is particularly relevant for our work here.

The participants underlined the need for an acknowledgement of the value of youth participation in every aspect of decision making and that everyone should have an equal right to take part, not only a possibility for the privileged youth. Young people must be given the possibility to act, not only to observe. It was also stressed that "Youth are human beings, not human becommings". The young people stated that adults have to be like elephants instead of crocodiles. Instead of having big teeth, they should have big ears and use them to listen.

Among the obstacles and barriers the participants pointed at, I would mention the statement that authorities and youth do not speak the same language and that they often were facing a bureaucratic administration, lack of trust and adult resistance to changes.

Among strategies the need to recognise local youth councils and an involvement of young people in co-managed bodies with municipal authorities was pointed at. It was also felt needed to carry out surveys on the situation of children and youth in local communities. Also the need to create national and international networks for co-operation was underlined, as well as various campaigns led by young people themselves.

The conference focused very much on education, formal as well as non-formal, and the situation of the students. I think you will find a lot of interesting suggestions in this part of the document.

In Norway we will study the conclusion from the Conference very carefully. I am convinced that many of the proposals may be implemented quite quickly; others may need some further considerations. My Ministry will try to make up a strategy on how we in the best way can secure a concrete follow-up. We will approach you later with more concrete proposals on how the ideas of the young people at the Conference can be implemented in a concrete way, on international as well as national level.

I will once more invite you to pick up a copy of the conclusions, study them carefully and see what will be relevant to implement in your country.

Thank you for your attention.