The goal of this research project is to identify factors that promote or hinder the social and civic engagement of young people in Brussels.

Brussels is the youngest region in Belgium. Unfortunately, in Brussels like in other areas, young people have little interest in the democratic process: developing this interest will therefore be a major challenge for the future of democracy. Increased civic engagement of young people would also enable improvements on the public policies that influence their participation in society.

Yet in the Brussels-Capital Region, there are many institutions, organisations, and associations whose goal is to increase the social engagement of young people, and especially underprivileged young people. The main goal of project Empower Youth is to identify the factors that stimulate or hinder the use of these structures by young residents of Brussels aged 14 to 26.

Researchers also wish to determine which initiatives are effective at promoting the participation of underprivileged young people, and pinpoint what makes them successful in order to possibly generalise this to other initiatives.


End of the project : February 2020
(Call Anticipate-2017, 2-year extension possible)

ULB partners

Dirk Jacobs and Alejandra Alarcon-Henriquez (coordination)
GERME, Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences
 

Other partners

IES, Institute for European Studies, VUB

Dates
Created on March 26, 2019