With the New Year, also our new global project Partnerships for Participation started and is taking on full speed with its first meeting in Bolivia from 15–25 January!

Partnerships for Participation (short: P4P) includes two exciting elements:

1. Children in ten organisations will set up partnerships with local councils or schools to have their say in decision-making. They will develop new approaches to child participation and train decision-makers in using them.
2. 10 EVS volunteers will support the children’s groups in P4P, while living in another country than their own, learning a new language and getting to know another Falcon organisation.

The volunteers, starting their service in February, will go for example from SJD Die Falken Germany to OGCEYOD Cameroon, from Nueva Generacion Bolivia to Esplais Catalans and from Woodcraft Folk UK to KKSP Indonesia. They will live in a completely new environment, but with friendly comrades from IFM organisations around to support them in their projects.

Together with children in their host organisations, they will research different child participation approaches already used, they will discuss how children want to be involved in decision-making and will show decision-makers how they can involve children to benefit from children’s per­spectives, creativity and experiences.

The group of volunteers will meet twice during the year, in Bolivia in January and together with children in Belgium in July. At the end of the project, we will publish a guide to child participation for children, educators and decision-makers. You can follow all our project updates in the newsletter, on facebook and on the website!