The project “We are the future, but we are here now!” opened a space for a discussion and questions — What are the barriers young people in Central and Eastern Europe face while participating in the civic and political processes in their home countries? What are the tools for non-violent involvement? What kind of local activities should we do to improve young people’s lives in the region?
During the project, we heard many inspiring stories, opinions and theories from young people in Eastern Europe, and we believe it is time to gather these stories for our publication!
The current ageist approach towards youth participation is the cause of our voices not being heard in the debates and decisions on things that actively affect us and our future. The “future generation” is here now, and we have the right to express our needs and demands. People often use the argument of immaturity and lack of experience to silence young people’s voices.
With this publication, we want to give space to the youth from Central and Eastern Europe and hear diverse opinions on the life of the young people in their communities, inspiring cases and touching stories.
We are looking for:
- Topical stories of your local youth experience of doing civic and political activism;
- Research, observations and analysis on the condition of youth and participation levels;
- Interviews with the local politicians working on youth policy;
- Analysis of the current political events relevant to the author’s country and how it is affecting youth;
- Fiction, including satire;
- Any other topic you think would fit this publication
Technical requirements for the articles:
- Something that has not been already broadly written (talked) about;
- The full articles should not exceed 10 000-12 000 characters;
- Have a logical structure and flow;
- Use UK English;
- Feel free to experiment with the format: your piece can be not only an article but also a video, a podcast, a comic, a poem, a fairy tale, etc.
Process:
After the deadline, the editorial board will read the proposals and prepare comments. The editorial board will send comments two weeks after the deadline. The authors will have 1 week to reply to the comments. After that, authors can start their work on the articles. They will have 4 weeks to finalise and send the stories to the editorial team. After this, we would agree on the final form of the written pieces and send the publication to the designer. The editorial board will upload the articles on the CDN website as single articles. CDN will distribute the printed publication.
If you want to be a part of this publication, send a summary of your proposal (maximum 2 000 characters ) by the 14th of September, 23:59 CEST to project.coordinator@cdnee.org. Please, do not hesitate to ask us questions if you have any. Please add project.coordinator@cdnee.org to your contacts so that you do not receive our reply in the spam folder.