The 2023-2025 National Youth Council (CNRR), established by the Voice Now projcet coordinated by Defence for Children Italy, is organized with the National Ombudsperson for Children. It is a space and process for diverse boys and girls to discuss their opinions on child rights issues. This project aligns with the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), particularly Article 12, a fundamental cornerstone for understanding and implementing the CRC.
The CNRR will be composed of organizations and institutions that express interest and are committed to facilitating the participation of youth and staff of 50 girls and boys aged 13 to 17. These children will discuss their opinions on issues they identify with or that have been solicited by the AGIA.
The initiative envisages an initial months-long consultation phase with groups of boys and girls through a workshop series in different territories and social contexts to inform the CNRR of the perspectives and orientations of youth from the onset.
Once established, the CNRR will run in four-month cycles with four meetings: three online and one in-person. Participants will select three political, social, and cultural topics for each cycle. During each cycle, the Commission will collaborate with experts, debate and research ideas, and develop recommendations for each topic. The project envisages four thematic cycles resulting in a final CNRR report that will be disseminated nationally.
In addition to the internal consultative and collaborative work, a series of meetings with institutions and stakeholders will be held based on the topics selected by the CNRR.
Once composed, the CNRR will work through four-monthly cycles, each of which will include four meetings, three online and one in-person. For each cycle, 3 political, social and cultural topics of interest will be discussed and selected by the participants. Each topic envisages the formation of a Commission, which, in the four-monthly cycle, will have the opportunity to deepen (also with the collaboration of experts in the field), debate and reach a series of recommendations. The project envisages four thematic cycles that will result in a final CNRR report that will be disseminated nationally.
In addition to the internal consultative and collaborative work, a series of hearings and meetings with institutions and relevant actors are planned in connection with the topics selected by the CNRR. Appropriate information tools will be prepared for each topic and cycle to empower the participants in their active function of analysis and debate. The process will take place in working committees alongside additional, creative activities designed to make the ’work’ of the participants enjoyable, fruitful and age-appropriate. The initiative envisages a final national forum in 2025 for the public presentation of the final report and introduction of the new body that will work for the following two years.
2023 - 2025
Based on the 2021-2023 planning and the objectives defined for the three-year period 2023-2025 by the Ombudsperson for Children (from now AGIA), the National Youth Council (from now CNRR) is an initiative aimed at fostering, in a structured and continuous manner, the consultation and direct participation of persons under the age of 18 to contribute to the democratic processes of reform and change in our country.
Project financed by the Ombudsperson for Children and Youth.
In order to ensure the process of development and progressive extension of the CNRR, as well as the connection and link with what has already been achieved over the years in the field of direct participation of boys and girls in Italy, the Voice Now project was conceived by Defence for Children Italia in consultation with relevant bodies and organisations that have already been active in the sector for several years, in particular Arciragazzi Nazionale, the Associazione Amici del Villaggio, the Italian Committee for Unicef Italia and Terres des Hommes italia. This core group of organisations constitutes the initiative’s steering committee, which will gradually foster the establishment of a national network of associations and institutions active in the sector, which will gradually come into direct and indirect contact with the work of the CNRR.
In order to guarantee a broader consultative context, the initiative also envisages online and face-to-face consultations, in addition to the 50 members of the CNRR, who will be able to transmit and communicate, in the course of the work, themes and recommendations that the CNRR may consider in the context of its work; the Voice Now network will thus be a context aimed at collecting and linking participatory experiences experimented and implemented by the adhering subjects (associations, bodies, institutions), in a logic of information exchange and connection.
