Rethinking the Youthful Cities Commission by Dmitrijs Zverevs| Dmitrijs.Zverevs@riga.lv
It has been quite a while since youth issues appeared on the agenda of the UBC and both The Book of Demands and the Book of Possibilities were published. The youth field has developed tremendously over time, yet not that much has changed in the Youthful Cities Commission over the years. Therefore, the Commission set an aim to rethink itself (who it unites, what it does, how it works) by the end of this year. Even though the Covid-19 related restrictions made discussions in person impossible, the work went on online. In summer, the UBC cities that had been involved in the operations of the Commission were invited to fill in a questionnaire about their previous experience in the Commission and future expectations.
In order to start the next year with a clear action plan for the Commission, during the first week of December we plan to have an online meeting of the Youthful Cities Commission. The ideas developed within the future workshops will be discussed and agreed upon. As this is expected to be a turning point in the work of the Commission, we invite all the cities that have been active in it until now and who wander if they would like to join in the future, to take part in the upcoming Commission’s meeting. The invitations will be sent out to the UBC member cities shortly.
Based on the responses received, the Commission had two future workshops online this October during which we discussed what should be the core focus of the Commission, what would be the most efficient models of operations, how to improve our external communication and deepen cooperation within and beyond the UBC. To mention just some, the participants came up with a variety of ideas: • setting up a Youth Board within the Commission, • focusing on youth workers as our main stakeholders in the cities, • empowering and supporting project-based cooperation between the cities involved in the Commission, • partnering up with other commissions on youth-related topics.
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