In the first half of 2026, the Democracy Reloading Partnership continued its work to strengthen youth participation in municipal decision-making across Europe. Between 15 January and 15 July, community management focused on two professional communities: the Expert Pool, bringing together almost 40 trainers and experts, and the Community of Practitioners Facebook group, a broader professional space for nearly 200 members committed to the topic.
During this period, two online Community of Practitioners meetings were held. Although these meetings offered important opportunities for exchange of experience and joint reflection, attendance was lower than expected. This provided a valuable learning point for the partnership: a new approach is being developed for the structure and thematic focus of the meetings in the second half of the year. The aim is to make future sessions better aligned with the needs of the community, easier to join, and more effective in encouraging active participation.
One of the most successful events of the first half of the year was the online Expert Pool meeting. The discussion focused on the Democracy Reloading online learning tool, launched on 20 May, which opens up new opportunities for supporting experts, trainers and municipal actors. The meeting was not only informative, but also a particularly active and constructive professional exchange, reinforcing the role of the Expert Pool in building the Partnership’s knowledge base and professional capacity.
In addition to the visible community events, significant background work also took place. One important element of this was the fine-tuning of the so-called support package concept. The aim of this work was to provide experts with a clear, consistent and practical framework for developing professional materials related to the support of municipalities. In parallel, a template was also prepared to support the experts’ work and to ensure that the support package elements are developed in a coherent structure. Once the concept had been finalised, four developers were selected to work on the support package materials linked to the first two pillars.
Throughout the first half of the year, community activation and information sharing were supported by 13 different calls. These included the Democracy Reloading 2026 webinars, trainer opportunities related to Youth4Democracy and Municipalities4Democracy, the preparation of mentoring packages for municipalities, application opportunities for the Expert Seminar, calls for facilitators and trainers, the testing of the online learning tool, and the updating of expert profiles on the website.
Another key development this year was the launch of the annual Democracy Reloading webinar series. The four-part series aims to support learning and connection among professionals working on municipal youth participation through current professional topics, international good practices and inspiring examples. The first webinar of this year has already taken place successfully, featuring a guest presentation by Maja Björkeback. The session provided particularly strong evidence of interest in the topic, as it reached the highest participation rate in the history of Democracy Reloading webinars. This creates a promising foundation for the remaining sessions in the series and confirms that regular, well-focused online professional events can play an important role in activating the Partnership’s wider community.
Overall, the first half of the year was about maintaining the communities, drawing lessons from experience and strengthening the professional background structures of the Partnership. In the case of the Community of Practitioners, one of the key tasks for the next period will be to increase activity and rethink the format of online meetings. At the same time, the Expert Pool has already shown its potential as a strong professional resource contributing to the aims of Democracy Reloading. The development of the support package, the launch of the online learning tool and the involvement of experts all indicate that the Partnership can enter the second half of the year with a more stable, structured and focused community approach.