Ideas and Practices to Boost Youth Participation Before Elections

With the European Parliament elections taking place from 6–9 June 2024, it’s time to explore some practical ways to encourage young people to have discussions, participate, and voice their needs and opinions.

This article can come in handy during other periods of time, too – whenever you are looking for ideas for new projects or searching for good tools to improve your understanding of youth participation, the European Union and elections. In the most positive sense, feel free to ‘steal’ some of these ideas, methods or approaches and use them in your work!

Getting the basics right – how does the European Union work?

Never old and always relevant, knowing how the European Union institutions work is a basis for democratic participation, no matter your age. Here are some of our suggested materials:

• Educational resources: teach, learn, play. A free ready-made teaching and learning material on how the EU member states work together in the European Council and the Council of the EU.
• Educational games about the European Union for primary and secondary school pupils.
• Learning material for teachers to help pupils learn about the EU and how it works.
• Learning materials on how the European Parliament works.
• EU-Crash-Course. Why does the EU exist? How does it work? And how can I have a say in it?
• How to increase inclusion in voting processes? Publications such as ‘Voting for All’ and this site about voting rights for people with intellectual disabilities are great sources of knowledge and ideas.

What can you do?

• Use these materials in your work with young people to raise their awareness about the European Union, youth participation in democratic life, elections and active citizenship.
• Plan your next Erasmus+ or European Solidarity Corps projects and make it all about youth participation – connected to elections or not, youth participation in democratic life is one of the horizontal priorities of Erasmus+. EU youth programmes are designed to empower young people through formal and non-formal education. If you want guidance or have questions, contact your National Agency for support (find contacts here).
• Check out the Flagship Projects Collection for ideas and best practices! Running out of ideas or simply looking for a few more? Borrow some of the best practices from amazing Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps projects. You can use the filter to find projects based on a topic, funder or country.
• Go big like the YEEEs24 project in Greece! Looking for ambition and a big scale? YEEEs24 is a project involving thousands of young people and a huge range of actions, starting from school and university visits to well-targeted coverage in media channels. The project also includes the creation of a podcast and a social media campaign with a focus on human-centred storytelling connected to participating in the elections. Get in touch with the project team to explore how to learn from them or cooperate in the future.

A little bonus track – projects and methods shared with SALTO PI

SALTO Participation and Information Resource Centre (SALTO PI) made an open call in 2023 to learn what youth field actors are doing in order to encourage youth participation in elections. Not all actions have to be big-scale campaigns to have an impact on young people. Here are some of the suggested practices:

• Learn debating! For example, the ‘Youth in the Eyes of Youth and Young Voters’ promoted by the Fondazione Toscana Sostenibile as part of the EU4YOUTH2ACT project focused on debate as a good method for developing participants’ discussion and critical thinking skills as well as their argumentation and public speaking skills. This is a great way to give young people the skills and confidence to speak up.
• Create posters and videos! Another effective yet simple way is to combine media creation skills with the topic of elections – Colegiul Mihai Viteazul Ineu, a school in Romania, created posters on voting together with pupils, using Canva (see the posters here). A youth exchange ‘Vote for Europe’ brought together 42 young people from Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece, Spain and Slovakia for a youth exchange where young people created videos together. Read the testimonials of participants on the Facebook page here.
• Do research and learn about relevant studies. Whether you are planning an awareness campaign, youth exchange or training event, being up to date with research about youth participation in elections is essential. One of the examples recommended to SALTO PI was an article: ‘The Potential of Youth Activism in Promoting Dialogue on Climate Crisis in Poland and Germany’, which was created as part of the ‚EU24 Engage for the Planet‘ project. Beyond statistics, the article highlights the urgency of the climate crisis, a challenge that knows no borders, and explores how European youth are breaking down national divides, illustrating the catalytic power of dialogue.
• The Participation Resource Pool also features studies and research on youth participation that you might want to check out. Don’t forget to follow the work of the RAY Network – a research-based analysis and monitoring of European youth programmes.
• For those who are hungry for more. SALTO PI recently published a poster and guidelines that can be used in various settings with young people when discussing participation in democratic life (elections and beyond). Read it here!