EU/ON SCALING UP – Gaia

Gaia City Council (third biggest city in Portugal and member of Porto Metropolitan Area) supports the vision of youth as an opportunity and is implementing a new approach to youth policies to ensure young people participate in decisions that affect their lives and communities. The Municipality of Vila Nova de Gaia intends to continue to respond to the needs and aspirations identified by young people, and to create learning opportunities for young people and participation in decision making processes, expanding its scope of intervention at national level. The work being developed at EU/ON SCALING UP contributed to explore and contribute to the creation of new opportunities and greater representation in terms of participation, inclusion, and empowerment of young people. Youth participation represents the opportunity, space, and support for young people to come together, debate political issues, form opinions, and develop positive change actions for their communities. Thus, EU / ON SCALING UP had explored the issues of youth participation; European citizenship; social cohesion; non-formal learning, quality youth work and building partnerships. The EU/ON SCALING UP project had promoted youth dialogue between young people, policy makers and youth policy experts at local, national and European level to: 1) support the participation and empowerment of young people as agents of change; 2) create opportunities for mutual learning, that build trust in political processes and democratic institutions; and support young people's perspectives and voice on participation and European citizenship; 3) support the knowledge and dissemination of European values, European citizenship, youth rights, European institutions, European youth policies and programs.