Youth participation in decision making
The Ministry of Justice
Channels for participation and influencing for children and young people.
Do the following
There are different ways and channels for influencing, depending on the matter. Municipalities and wellbeing services counties have youth parliaments and different groups of actors. In schools, student unions work for the benefit of all students in the school. By participating in the activities of associations, young people can influence matters that interest them. You can find an influencing channel for young people, Digiraati.fi, online. Young people can also participate and influence through the otakantaa.fi service or by making initiatives to a municipality in the kuntalaisaloite.fi service.
Find out what channels of participation and influence are available for young people in your home municipality. You can find information on the website of your municipality of residence and by asking your school, educational institution, youth centres or associations. Digiraati participants are invited personally by email. Anyone can open and participate in various discussions and surveys in the otakantaa.fi service. On the Kuntalaisaloite.fi service, you can submit initiatives to the municipalities participating in the service and support and follow the initiatives made by others.
To whom and on what terms
There is no minimum age for discussions on Otakantaa.fi and making initiatives to municipal authorities.
The Ministry of Justice
The Ministry of Justice
Contact information
Digiraati.fi
Digiraati.fi is part of the Ministry of Justice’s online democracy services. Both young people and youth sector actors have been involved in the development work. The service can be used by young people and parties working with young people. The service can be adopted by municipalities, wellbeing services counties and other authorities, educational institutions, organisations and groups of youth actors.
In digiraati, participants discuss a pre-agreed topic for 1–3 weeks. The discussion takes place in writing under pen names in the service’s own, closed message board. The aim is to form a final statement on the topic discussed by the panel, which will be forwarded to the decision-makers and published in the service. The discussion is guided and supervised by a trained instructor who takes care of the progress, safety and fluency of the discussion.