Children Municipal Council
The Children Municipal Council (in Italian, Consiglio Comunale delle
Ragazze e dei Ragazzi – CCR) is a model of participative democracy
born in 2005 with the aim to involve girls and boys, in natural, direct
and critic way, in the management of the city to which they belong.
CCR is a structure in which children meet to express their opinions,
to share their ideas, to discuss in a free way respecting rules, to elaborate
proposal to make better the life in the town and to co-operate with the
Municipal Administration in all the matters they are concerned.
The Children Municipal Council involves all the young people between
9 and 4 years old (around 4500) living in the municipality of Chieti.
The project is managed under the active involvement of the schools with
the help of a team composed by youth workers of some local associations
engaged on the issues of the Sustainable Development (Arci Officine Culturali,
Nuovo Municipio, Legambiente, MATE) and with the support of the Deputy
Mayor for Participation policies. CCR represents the interest of the
girls and boys of the municipality of Chieti and has a propositional
and consultative role: it can promote proposals and give advice that,
even if not binding, they must be acquired by the Municipal Administration
that is obliged to inform the CCR on the decisions and activities that
concerns children and, in case, to motivate any refuse to the proposals.
Objectives
To educate children on the application of democracy and on the active
citizenship involving in the project making, realization and evaluation
of all the activities related to the cultural and social growth of
the town;
To guarantee to the Municipal Administration the fundamental point of
view of the children and their direct knowledge of their needs and expectations
seen as an important resource for the entire community;
To invest on the future, assuming the responsibility to train and educate
new generations;
To improve life quality and to spread a culture of the urban development
linked to the evolutive needs of those who live in the towns since the
childhood.
As far as children are concerned, through this project they:
- Learn the functioning of the public administration;
- Understand the concept of the representation;
- Apply the knowledge and the competences acquired at school on the issues of the Civic Education and the Civil Cohabitation;
- Develop autonomy, engagement, sense of responsibility, initiative;
- Learn to have continuous relationship with the “other” and with what is different and could generate conflict;
- Learn to co-operate for a common aim sharing ideas, methods, cultures, different powers;
- Learn to respect, protect and valorise the common goods;
- Become conscious to belong to a territory and their rights and obligations as citizens;
Competences of the CCR
- environment
- art and culture
- leisure time
- sport
- information - communication
- health
- interculturality