According to reports summarising social consultations carried out for the Łódź Town Hall, children’s and youth’ participation in co-creating the city and co-deciding about it is marginal. In 2020 there was not a single child taking part in consultation meetings.
We want to change this state of affairs by implementing 4 different models of the School Participative Budget in 8 primary and 8 secondary schools in Łódź. We will run a training for School Budget Supervisors on transparency and disclosure of informing about the school budget. In all 16 schools we will organise meetings for pupils, teachers and parents to talk about the needs and problems of their facilities, and possible solutions. Each school will receive from us PLN 4 000 to implement ideas participants will come up with jointly. We will also organise a meeting for school representatives with the Town Hall officials to discuss the effects of the project, development of School Participative Budgets in Łódź , and ways in which children and youths can be engaged in the town matters. We will run a social campaign targeted at young people from Łódź showing them that their voice matters, and we will encourage them to involve in school issues and social consultations concerning their hometown and their immediate neighbourhood.
Our partner is the Urban Activity Bureau by the Łódź Town Hall that will help us recruit schools for the project and will work with us on the school budget model.