Kutná Hora excels in the field of school participation and youth participation. In cooperation with the Participation Factory, the city managed to link the student councils with the work of school parliaments and the school participatory budgeting (PB) experiences and use these positive experiences to take the PB process to the city level. This is a unique situation, unprecedented in the Czech Republic and unusual in terms of experience with youth and school participation in the EU.
When the Kutná Hora City Council decided to implement the first participatory budgeting in their city, they focused on developing a process that would be feasible within their existing capacities. They quickly discovered that there was not enough capacity in their office to deliver the project, Then the City Hall requested our support in designing a process fit for these conditions. Our experts came up with the idea to create and train a project team consisting of students active in local school parliaments.
The youth project team had four members. The youngest was a ninth-grade student from a primary school, the oldest was a high school senior. The project team had to go through comprehensive training to acquire the skills necessary for managing a city-wide PB. In the course of two months, we held weekly two-hour online training and consultation sessions to teach them about participatory budgeting, project management, and facilitation techniques.
While implementing the participatory budget, the student project team managed to handle the majority of activities including communication and facilitation. The students became a liaison between public project proponents and officials. After a successful first year, the process was renewed for another cycle and the project team was invited to continue their work for the next PB iteration. The success of the PB continued in the second year as the number of participants doubled showing high interest in the process and trust in the work of the youth project team.