Network on Youth Issues

At the UBC General Conference in Klaipeda, in October 2003, a new Network on Youth Issues was created. The Network will work towards increased participation from youth within the UBC and its member cities. We will focus on young people's possibility of influencing their society, in parliamentary process as well as in their everyday lives as pupils, students, consumers of culture and entertainment, employees, teenage parents, and so on.

Young people today are of course as individual as their parents' generation, but there are factors that differentiate them from their fathers. Youth today is prolonged: the young study longer, so they are older when they get their first permanent jobs, and when they start their own families and have children. And they are older when they are finally considered independent - for example, in many of our countries they are not represented in the parliamentary system.

The main aim for the network is
Dialogue - to encourage dialogue between the UBC and youth living in the member cities;
Influence - in order to include young people's opinions, and let young people's important issues influence the agenda of the UBC;
Co-operation - to promote youth cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region, youth involvement, exchange and participation in the UBC member cities.

The network will work towards these aims by:
Creating a Working Group to promote youth co-operation, involvement, and exchange in the UBC member cities of the BSR. The Network is in the process of forming a working group with one youth representative (age 18-25) from local youth organisations, and one municipal civil servant with responsibility for youth issues. The working group will meet 3-4 times during 2004; our next meeting will be held in Kolding, Denmark on May 17-18,2004.

Working towards a Youth Conference in 2005 - The conference should be a forum for young people of the UBC cities as well as other interested cities, to exchange experiences, find partners, and discuss common issues such as youth participation, EU and Baltic Sea co-operation, and youth influence on local levels.

Maintaining a dialogue between the UBC executive board and youth - the UBC Executive Board contacts young people of every city they meet in, with the aim of learning about the views and ideas of the young generation concerning the life in and the future of that city.