IX Conference - Reggio Emilia - Italy
18, 19 and 20 november 2009

Content of the conference

On the coming 18th, 19th and 20th November, in the Italian town of Reggio Emilia, which is exercising the Presidency of the network in 2009, the 9th Annual OIDP Conference will be held, under the title “Youth, Citizenship and Participatory Democracy”.

In view of the significant change that is taking place on a planetary scale and the crisis in the system of representative democracy it is necessary to reconsider new forms of services management and participation that will involve neighbourhoods, associations and also each isolated individual.

Within the framework of participatory democracy it is necessary to use other tools to create an active feeling of belonging in the territory and that will allow for a new pact to be made with the citizenry. How? By investing in social and service policies, adapting and measuring the offer according to the specific needs of the people.

Citizens must remain in a position of equality of opportunities in order to have access to the benefits of the system. Consequently, there is a direct relationship between the provision of the services and the sphere of rights. The idea is that the institutions should offer equality of opportunities to access services and public resources in order to establish social relations that are marked by the equality of dignity.

Both within the framework of social policies and in the foundation of civil rights, young people today represent the political category that is most at risk. All young people, in fact, are born “strangers” to the social cohesion established “prior” to their appearance in society. As a result, this means that youths are strangers to a type of social cohesion that belongs to a time that has now passed, as it predates the changes and demographic, social and economic mutations of globalisation.

The central axis of the Conference will revolve around a comparison of tools, policies and experiences with which to build citizenship today on the basis of the new generations.

Overall goals

• To innovate local government policies concerning the social questions least represented by policy and in the institutions.
• To strengthen policies of cultural recognition that involve the new generations and the places in which education takes place, in order to build intergenerational dialogue.
• To promote democratic participation on the part of young people in the territories in which they live, study and work, as a resource for coexistence and the transfer of shared collective memory.

Thematic axes

• Youth policies and local government systems
  What are they doing and how are they organising the articulation of the institutions in the local context to promote youth and intergenerational participation?
• Teaching methods and places anticipated for educational to take place
  What participatory routes promote educational and training entities and with what results, in terms of a growth in the sense of belonging to the territory and social competences in globalised and multicultural society?
• Social policies and the places in which the new generations can participate
  How and in what public and private, formal and informal, or even virtual, spaces, are forms of youth participation acted on and carried out? Are there contexts that might favour participation more than others?
• Image as a communications and participation tool. Audiovisual experiences with young people.