Fahrtwind #07: Young Europeans

www.young-europeans.eu

We’d like to to inform our European friends about the progress of the research and participation project „young Germans“. We hope you like the project and join us in our vision: „Young Europeans“

 

About Young Germans

„Young Germans“ is a youth-led research and participation project about the situation of young people. The objectives of the project are: to understand and portray the challenges young people face today and to empower them to bring about the changes needed, to improve their situation.

The project was founded by Simon Schnetzer, a young German economist. In 2010 he cycled and couchsurfed for two months across Germany to interview hundreds of people and write a national report (Young Germans 2011). After a frustrating work-experience with United Nations he was wondering how we could make politics work for people more effectively. In his opinion the answer is: ask the people and listen to what they have to say.

 

The methodology

At the core of the project there is a survey, developed through an open and transparent process, to understand the issues and the importance they play for young people today. In a way, developing and conducting this survey is what we do to “listen to the people”.

The research is a combination of quantitative and qualtitative methods of social research and participatory methods of community building and empowerment. The project design is rather complex, but runs somehow like that

1.    Questionnaire development
Through an open and transparent process, a questionnaire is developed to research four broad areas of themes very relevant for young people: life & identity, education & career, living environment & home, politics & participation.

2.    Online survey
This questionnaire is put online for universal access and participation. In 2010/11 we had 850 participants, in 2012/13 already over 3.000. The results are not representative! Anyone can participate and the results do not rely on a random sample with an even demographic or regional distribution. But regarding the considerable amount of participants, the results are very indicative for trends and quite representative, if you look at specific groups and regions.

3.    National bicylce tour
In order to meet and interview young people all over the country we conduct a national bicycle tour (so far in 2010 and 2012). This way, we really get to experience our country and have easier access to the people we meet. It is also a good symbol for our environmentally friendly and future-minded mission.

4.    City surveys
“How good is your city for young people? And how could it become better?”
With our first only national survey, we’ve encountered the problem that national data are not very relevant for most young people. The issue here is that most things people care about directly affect them: they are local. Therefore we’ve developed the concept of city-surveys.

  • * we identify a group of young people engaging in local affairs
  • * we visit them during our bicycle-tour and conduct a workshop on how the survey works and how to conduct interviews
  • * we supply them with information, questionnaires and intermediary results (based on the survey filtered for their postal code/s)
  • * they develop a collective understanding of young people on common issues and potential solutions for improvements
  • * they become part of the national network for youth issues

 

5.    Qualitative research
The motto of our research is to bring statistics to life and tell the stories behind statistics. We hate boring statistics and therefore make the stories of people like you and me a part of the project. Interviews are always conducted on the basis of the questionnaire to provide the themes and then ask e.g. “Why do you state that the participation of young people in your town is rather bad? How could it be better?” The interviewer notes the response in headwords and takes a picture.
Before we go out to interview people, we take a look at the statistics to get a sense of what people care about and what stories we want to be able to tell. We then prepare a short questionnaire for “focus interviews” and collect specifically the stories for issues we later want to write about. The stories then help us to explain what people really thought about or meant, when they made their crosses. And the explanations help us to understand, how a negative situation could be improved.

6.    National symposium
It feels great to see many young and empowered people expressing their collective interests. But we want to help them to support each other and find solutions beyond their borders of their towns and own ideas. At a national youth symposium, we bring the people together who have already conducted city surveys and develop a local and national action plan. Now that we understand, what our collective issues are, how can we make things better. Who do we have to inform? How can we bring about change? Who else has encountered these difficulties and found solutions? We’ll do that using the barcamp-format to allow a maximum of interaction and true participation and transparency regarding the issues and ideas.

 

A perspective for Europe: join us, it’s about us!

We hope to expand the project to other countries, cities and communities. Write to us, if you are interested. We want to engage you in an international exchange on our common issues, learn from each other and constructively affect politics, locally, nationally and in Europe, towards real change.

 

Our perspective for Germany

We hope to continue to run this project for a very long time, each year a bit better, more influential and with more support. To realize this, we’re planning to found an institution to host and conduct the project. In 2010, Simon started alone and funded the project from his savings. In 2012, he joined forces with the national servicepoint for youth-participation and received funding from the EU’s Youth in Action programme and the German state Northrhine-Westfalia. We can’t wait to see the project grow and collectively shape the future.

Join us in giving young people a loud voice and our countries and people an honest perspective.

 

 

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