This priority aims at mutually reinforcing efforts undertaken at the European level by the Commission with those happening in the EU Members States. The call aims to strengthen the sustainability and impact of child participation mechanisms (existing or to be created) at local and national level in decision making processes. Therefore in this call, strong involvement of local, regional and national public authorities is essential as it contributes to the sustainability of the results and ensures more systemic changes. This can be achieved by allocating adequate resources for new and existing mechanisms of child participation, through education on citizenship, equality and participation in democratic processes in schools, capacity building for adults on how to engage in discussions with children in a meaningful way and awareness raising and training activities for children.

Activities that can be funded (scope):

• Establishing long-term and sustainable programmes, and child participation mechanisms at local and national levelel, including in schools;
• Providing support and expanding the operational scope of existing child participation mechanisms with the aim of embeding them in the wider decision making processes and democratic system at local and national level;
• Mutual learning, training activities, exchange of good practices, cooperation, including identifying good practices;
• Capacity building and training activities of national, regional and local authorities;
• Training and awarness raising activities for children and adults on the right to be heard and on child participation

Expected impact:

• Implementation of the EU Strategy on the rights of the child, and in particular of its recommendations to EU Member States;
• Enhanced child participation at local and national level, including in schools;
• Strengthened knowledge and expertise on how to embed child participation in decision making at local and national level;
• Increased space provided by local authorities for girls and boys in all their diversity to make their voice heard on issues related to the communities where they live and that matter to them;
• Established long-term child participation mechanisms at local and national level, including in schools;
• Increased awareness on and general knowledge of children's right to be heard and on child participation, especially with regard to public decision making processes as well as and their practical implementation, among the general population, professionals working with children, and children themselves;

The available call budget is EUR 3 010 000, to distribute among the presented projects.

Projects should normally range between 12 and 24 months

In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:

Be legal entities (public or private bodies)

Be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.: EU Member States

other eligibility conditions:

• Organisations which are profit-oriented must submit applications in partnership with public entities or private non-profit organisations;
• The project can be either national or transnational;
• The EU grant applied for cannot be lower than EUR 75 000.

Proposals must be complete and contain all the requested information and all required annexes and supporting documents:

• Application Form Part A - contains administrative information about the participants (future coordinator, beneficiaries and affiliated entities) and the summarised budget for the project (to be filled in directly online)
• Application Form Part B - contains the technical description of the project (to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed and then assembled and re-uploaded)
• Part C (to be filled in directly online) containing additional project data including mandatory indicators

Mandatory annexes and supporting documents (to be uploaded): 

• CVs (standard) of core project team
• Activity reports of last year
• List of previous projects (key projects for the last 4 years) (template available in Part B)
• For participants with activities involving children: their child protection policy covering the four areas described in the Keeping Children Safe Child Safeguarding Standards. It should be clearly indicated in the application which partners will work directly with children.
• Other annexes

For application or further information, please contact sara.bayes(ELIMINAR)@sjd.es