Jaanus Riibe, elder of Kristiine district
Today, there is an active discussion about the future of Tallinn’s management, within which young people have actively taken up the defense of free public transport. Young people have said that if the new government makes public transport pay, they will fight. It is good to see that young people dare to express their opinion. During the creation of the idea of a new youth council, I was the vice-chairman of the youth council of the city of Tallinn, under whose leadership we came up with the idea of creating a council that strongly represents the city’s youth. Thirteen years have now passed since the creation of the new representative body.
The city really needs a youth council. The capital of Estonia is home to more than 400,000 people, about one fourth of them are young people. It is important for the Tallinn city administration to know what the expectations and wishes of the next generation are. Young people need to be more involved in management and decision-making. Motivated young people come up with new approaches and ideas, which in the end is a great contribution. To make the city more youth-friendly, they need to be more involved in decision-making processes and given the opportunity to take responsibility. Active and ambitious young people are potential leaders who will shape our country’s society in the near future and stand for Estonia’s sustainability and well-being. The Youth Council is a good platform for dialogue between young people and local officials and helps to solve problems affecting young people at the local level, such as youth leisure opportunities, education policy, transport issues and others.
The youth council of the city of Tallinn, which is active today, is also an example for other relevant institutions and assemblies all over Estonia. Looking back today, I have to admit that we worked a lot for the birth of the new youth council, and this journey was full of different visions. The work bore fruit on May 5, 2011, when the Tallinn City Youth Council was founded.
In the past, young people did not have a serious and city-wide outlet to express their opinion, influence decisions and offer possible solutions to problems. As mentioned above, the Tallinn Youth Council, a permanent advisory committee, was established in February 2004 with the aim of shaping the strategic development directions of the city’s youth policy, analyzing the youth work development plan and legislation regulating youth work, and making proposals to improve youth work.
At that time, the Youth Council included 9 representatives of youth organizations and other experts in the field of youth, a total of 24 members. Unfortunately, it was already clear at that time that we needed a representative organization that included all young people, which had not been possible to create in Tallinn until now. Essentially, together with the young people, we wanted to build a continuously functioning body that would have considerable weight in the city government for presenting the views of young people. Today’s youth council deals with both youth policy and youth events, and various city topics have been discussed, such as public transport, night lines, graffiti art, bicycle paths and others.
Unfortunately, previous attempts to create a youth council turned out to be more of a one-off project. We learned a lot from the experience so far. The creation of the youth council actually started much earlier. It was in 2006, when a working group under the leadership of deputy mayor Kaia Jäppinen gathered, which presented its own vision of the Tallinn Youth Council. The committee presented its thoughts to the Youth Council in the spring of 2008.
In 2009, we launched a youth council pilot project in Tallinn with the aim of testing the functioning of the election system and other foundations. I remember very well those intense discussions, debates and the process of electing youth representatives. Analogously to the committees of the Tallinn City Council, we set the task of the newly created youth council to discuss important drafts and to add young people’s recommendations and opinions to the drafts.
By that time, it was agreed that there would be 21 seats in the youth council, of which seven seats would be filled by students, seven by students and seven by youth associations operating in the city. Later, the results of the project were used as a basis for the permanent launch of the work of the youth council. The project was advised and supported by the Youth Council of the City of Tallinn together with the Tallinn Sports and Youth Board at the time, it was carried out by the Round Table of the NGO Tallinn Student Associations and the youth of the Youth Council of the City of Tallinn.
The new statute of the Tallinn Youth Council was submitted to the Tallinn City Council in December 2010. The statute had been previously approved by the Tallinn Youth Council. According to the presented statute, the youth council of the city of Tallinn was a participatory body of young people with advisory rights operating under the city council., the purpose of which is to discuss issues concerning young people within the competence of the city and to make proposals about them to the city council and the city administration, based on the needs and interests of young people. The Tallinn Youth Council was founded on May 5, 2011.
But why is a youth council needed? By participating in the work of the youth council, a young person learns to understand complex political processes. The basic principles of democracy become clear, which is a prerequisite for both a good politician and a citizen who cares about the state of society. The young person gains experience and makes many new acquaintances, comes into contact with problems in various areas of local life and learns a sense of duty and responsibility.
The youth council is an ideal opportunity for active young people to improve themselves and participate in solving problems at home. Having more knowledge, skills and experience from the youth council, their work will be more targeted and effective in the future. In addition, young people can come up with many good and innovative solutions to the bottlenecks that affect them in the city. Work in the youth council sharpens social sensitivity and is aimed at improving the living environment of the entire population of Tallinn instead of personal gain.
Young people get a useful lesson, courage and habit to present their views and influence society. The city gets innovative ideas and an active, socially caring, full-fledged citizenry, the city residents a better environment and a more caring offspring. All this ensures that the voice and views of young people are taken into account in the city’s development and policy-making.
Today, 25 young people participate in the city’s youth council, whose term of office lasts for two years. Starting in 2021, members of the youth council will be elected by district, to ensure broad-based involvement and representation of young people from different regions according to the number of young residents. Elections for the new composition are held every two years in the second full week of November, and members are elected for two years. Through this, young people can strengthen their voice in local politics and decision-making. The Youth Council is an important tool for involving and representing young people in local politics and taking into account their interests and needs.
