THE BRIEF

The lack of information about the political participation of young people at the local council, has the effect of limiting or even excluding them from decision-making. Thus, in the context of the implementation of the EU-funded BE-PART project, ActionAid Hellas in collaboration with the Hellenic Society for Local Development and Self-Government (Project Coordinator) and the Center for European and Constitutional Law-Themistocles and Dimitris Tsatsou Foundation, created a social experiment with to highlight the value of the participation of all of young people in the local council, to shield the inclusive identity of the local government and to intensify its cooperation with the Civil Society to prevent phenomena of racism and xenophobia. We took over the creative scenario and production of the social experiment that was captured in a 5 minutes video, which is published at the organization’s social media.

THE CONCEPT

To carry out the experiment, we selected six young men and women, strangers to each other, members of different social groups, who stood on both sides behind a wall covered with words that corresponded to ideas, behaviors and emotions (for example: acceptance, inclusion, fear, concern, wonder, justice etc.). All of participants heard stories of exclusion, starring their peers, and were then asked to remove from the wall those words that expressed the ideas they had thought and the feelings they had felt.

Many of the words removed from both sides of the wall were the same, causing young men and women to face each other. The majority of them reacted with spontaneity and sympathy to major social issues. They, also, highlighted in real time the need to inform and educate all young people on issues of active and equal participation in decision-making processes at the local councils and the establishment of inclusive Youth Municipal Councils.