“Sweet 16, Never Been..to Vote!” Youth Democracy Project, Advanced Planning Visit, Pembroke, Malta

This project is being organised and hosted by TDM 2000 Maltain collaboraton with the Dingli Local Council.  The Advanced Planning Visit is being held between the 14th and 16th of November 2009, whilst the principal event will be held in March of 2010.

The main aim of this project is to give youth the opportunity to increase their awareness and involvement on the democratic process of voting within their respective countries and also at a European level. The theme selected for the project is whether the voting age should be lowered down to the age of 16.

The main objectives are; increasing awareness on European citizenship, promoting the importance of citizenship education within the youth segment, to generate awareness on the importance of politics and voting and to understand whether youth pertaining to different countries follow a decision making process when voting. The duration of the project is 8 months, commencing in November and terminating in June. The countries involved are Malta, Bulgaria, Italy and Turkey; the number of partners are 8 and the number of participants per entity is of 5, which will therefore sum up to a total of 40 participants.

A number of activities will take place throughout the project; mainly an Advanced Planning Visit, a research period where participants will conduct a quantitative and qualitative analysis within their respective countries, and also a meeting, scheduled to be held in Malta to analyse the results obtained from the research and to further discuss the issue as well as to create a performance related to democracy in general and why 16 – 18 year olds should be able to vote or not. A creative follow up product will be created so as to promote the project and the YiA programme and non-formal education in general.