From December 3rd to Friday 5th, the YES Forum took part in the conference "Democracy in Action - Youth Work Matters" in Strasbourg, organised by IJAB, where youth professionals and young people together discussed how youth work represents the backbone of a democratic society. The YES Forum presented its approach to youth participation in its annual Policy Event, as an example of successful civic engagement for young people.
The role of youth work in building a democratic and resilient society was reminded by Uwe Finke-Timpe, the Head of Division, Federal Ministry for Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth in the opening speech of the conference. After an insightful and worrisome lecture in the morning by professor Lindberg from the V-Dem Institute on the current global democratic backsliding and the eroding state of democracy worldwide, the Chair of the European Steering Committee for Youth (CDEJ), Miriam Teuma, underlined how youth work acts exactly where democracy weakens: it restores the connection when institutions feel distant, it keeps the dialogue possible when public debate turns toxic and it teachers young people how to disagree in a respectful way.
Crucially, youth work is not a service, but rather a democratic process: it is a practice that teachers participation, questioning and belonging and as such it acts as a democratic space.
On Friday during the session "Seeds for Democracy", the YES Forum shared with some of the participants a practice of participatory democracy, the Policy Event where each year grassroot realities working with and for young people meet EU policymakers in Brussels to share their experience and mutually learn from each other.
The conference provided the space to learn from other organizations' participatory practices to include the voices of youth in the policymaking process at the local, national and EU level.
