The City Council involves youth with applying the European Green Deal

Rubí was selected to participate in the Youth/Green ImPACT project, an initiative by the European Commission’s Education, Culture and Audiovisual Executive Agency, which in Spain is done by the National Youth Institute (INJUVE), framed within the Erasmus + programme, Structured Dialogue. The aim of the project is to foster dialogue between the city’s young people and the administration, to thus apply the European Green Deal at a local level. Its purpose is to improve the knowledge that youth have of the Green Deal, creating spaces for debate with their political representatives on the actions and measures that can be adopted, and strengthening their local and European civil participation capabilities.

Mayor Ana María Martínez Martínez has stressed the importance of this initiative, which introduces young children to the big EU policies on sustainability: ‘We have advocated the need to act locally in our city to favour the energy transition for a long time now, via the Rubí Brilla (Rubí Shines) project and to do so by focusing on raising youth’s awareness. This European initiative aligns perfectly with our goals, which is why we are very excited to be part of it’.

The Green Deal is the European Union’s roadmap to achieve a continent with a sustainable economy, where greenhouse-gas emissions are no longer produced by 2050, economic growth is disassociated from resource use, and nobody and nowhere is left behind.

In Rubí, the aim of the Youth/Green ImPACT project is for 700 young men and women from 13 to 30 years old to actively participate in obtaining these targets. To this end, five activities have been organised that will be implemented during 2021. Several municipal services have already gotten involved, as well as political representatives and European experts. The first will be held on 21 January and 18 February and consists of a dialogue between the City Council and some hundred 13- and 14-year-olds from the Child and Adolescent Council and representatives from Rubí’s secondary schools. In the session, they will analyse the results of a survey with youth conducted previously. They will also debate possible ideas that can be applied to the city with the Mayor’s Office and Member of the European Parliament César Luena, who is also the vice-chair of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety of the European Parliament.

The dates for the other activities scheduled within the Youth/Green ImPACT project have still not been fixed, although the definition of their contents is underway. The second will be an information and awareness raising workshop on the Green Deal for 14- to 18-year-old students from five secondary schools. They will talk about local policies on the environment and energy efficiency, which will come under direct debate by the young people, the Mayor’s Office and a European political representative.

Next, the school forum will be held, entitled Towards a Green Deal for Rubí and for Europe, for 13- and 14-year-olds, at which they will discuss the experience of raising awareness on Rubí Brilla (Rubí Shines) via the 50/50 project.

The next activity planned is the youth workshop Green Europe in Neighbourhoods, for young men and women from 13 to 30 years old. The aim of the conference is information, awareness-raising and participation in the European policies that directly affect young people, during which alternative activities will be held at neighbourhood community centres.

The last activity plans to hold a youth forum on energy transition and new jobs, organised by the City Council in collaboration with the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, which will be for students, young entrepreneurs, businesspeople and representatives from the local, regional, national and European public sectors.

Presentation session

To prepare for the Youth/Green ImPACT project, during the present month of December, an initial virtual meeting was held between the City Council and a representative of the young people taking part in this initiative. During the session, the objectives of the Erasmus + programme and the Youth/Green ImPACT project were explained to them, as well as the Green Deal and the role that they can play. Municipal technicians also told the young people about the policies that are already being applied in Rubí to help the environment, such as the Rubí Brilla (Rubí Shines) project and the Local Waste Plan.