NGOs galvanise youth into action

"Young people definitely have their say in our town,” says Dorota Łukomska, mayor of Stąporków, in the Świętokrzyskie province, southern Poland.

“They have established numerous groups that have proven to be, what you may call, hyperactive – fortunately. We now have a team of over 70 volunteers, a youth council, young advisors to the city mayor, alongside individual groups centered on hip-hop, street workout, and break dance," the mayor told our reporter, Alicja Baczyńska.

The town is one of several localities taking part in the “Youth has Impact” programme, run by the Civis Polonus and the Field for Dialogue Foundations in Warsaw.

The two NGOs have offered a helping hand to local authorities in six boroughs in Poland in their efforts at enthusing teenagers about civic engagement at schools and in their communities.

The initiative is run in partnership with the Center for Lifelong Learning and Community Engagement at Goldsmiths College, University of London, whose youth engagement programme, running for a decade now at London’s Lewisham district, has been seeing a turnout of up to 53 percent in elections for the district’s young mayor.