POWER & DESCISION Section 2- MYP Training

Power & Decision Making

Section 2: Enabling Environment & Intergenerational Approaches

Children/Young People's Development

How do we, as adults, and as leaders of the Movement, share this power, and create space for participation and decision-making? How do we create this enabling environment? How do we share power, and create space? Before we dive into specific practices and methodologies of youth participation, we want to focus on power and bias. In the next section we will look at bias towards adults which discriminates against young people and children, which is a form of ageism often called ‘adultism’.

Empowerment

Rights-Based

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This section will do a deeper dive into ‘Empowerment’ and how participation is, fundamentally, about power. Quality and meaningful participation processes can bring power to groups of people, and shift and readdress power balances within society or structures. This is supported by Hart’s Ladder and the Flower of Participation in their focus on decision-making power: Participation in decision-making is about the sharing and distribution of power – from and between those that typically control the process (adults) to those that seek to engage (children and young people). Meaningful youth participation involves the belief that children and young people are the experts in their own lives, have the right to participate and deserve decision-making power.

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Improved Outcomes

In section 1, we spoke about some rationales as to ‘why’ youth participation is important. These were: This section will do a deeper dive into ‘Empowerment’ and how participation is, fundamentally, about power and what the culture that supports Meaningful Youth Participation looks like. Quality and meaningful participation processes can bring power to groups of people, and shift and readdress power balances within society or structures.