Youth Democracy Academy

YDA is designed to ensure that young people, too often marginalized from political processes, are equipped with knowledge and skills to participate.

International IDEA's Youth Democracy Academy (YDA) is designed to ensure that young women and men, too often marginalized from political processes, are equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to effectively participate in, and contribute to, the consolidation and strengthening of their democracies.

The Youth Democracy Academy consists of 12 modules that are delivered in a series of workshops. Each module is broken down according to five substantive sections.

Modules

Introduction to Democracy & Skills Development
Constitutions
Elections
Political Parties
Parliaments
Public Administration Reform
Local Governance
Access to Justice
Engaged Citizens (Media, Access to Information and Civic Education)
Civil Society
Working in Democratic Governance
Learning Assessment

Module sessions

Overview - Provides technical information on the subject including key definitions and concepts that are used and built on throughout the duration of the modules. Although heavy in technical information, the session uses various methodologies to ensure it also remains participatory.
Comparative experiences - To allow participants to better analyse their democratic realities, this session ensures that various perspectives and experiences are brought in to the curriculum. This can include resource persons who provide comparative analysis from the region and beyond and/or analysis of national, regional and international models and experiences. The session will concentrate on emerging issues within the topic at hand.
Case studies - To ensure that the curriculum maintains a global perspective case studies are offered in the form of guest speakers, written samples or videos in order for participants to have access to comparative examples from around the world.
Cross-cutting themes - Delves into transversal questions surrounding human rights, gender, diversity, inclusion, accountability and others in order to allow participants the space to examine the subject at hand through different lenses. It further offers the participants the space to tackle these transversal questions as they link to the module.
Applied learning - As skills-building forms an integral part of the curriculum as a whole, this session serves as the culmination of the modules because it allows participants to practice their new knowledge and skills through a variety of practical exercises including debates, simulations and other.

For more information on the Youth Democracy Academy, please contact: YouthAcademy@idea.int

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YDC session

YDC Session

YDA Scholars Speak

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Youth Democracy Academy scholars are learning and sharing.

Hear what some of the programme participants think the sessions and find out how YDA has influenced how they live and engage in their communities.

[The Youth Democracy Academy] has been an unforgettable experience that has let me learn a lot of worthwhile knowledge that I use today. Although I was expecting a strictly theoretical training with a bunch of unhappy people, I met a lot of young people who were ready to hear my voice and opinion. I think that all together to group [of participants and facilitators] did their job well.

I really liked the concept of the training, its good organization and the good presentations. Flexibility is something that differs this training from others. Although some of the topics discussed during this training were familiar to me, the programme still served to deepen my knowledge.

The trainings was not at all boring as there were games to stay concentrated and energizers between sessions. The games served to connect us all as participants so that we would know each other better. This is why this training is different from other routine trainings and why it met my expectations. I also found it interesting to visit the sites and institutions about which we were learning [Election Management Body, Parliament etc.].

Aside from all of the useful lectures, I enjoyed the spontaneity and I will remember hanging out with people I have never met or seen before; it now seems as though we have met before and that I have known them all my life. The atmosphere of the Academy was relaxed; it was really nice to talk and spend time together. The only disadvantage of the training is that it did not last longer. -- Jawhar

The selection of programme participants from diverse regions and specialties has contributed greatly in enriching the programme. It avoids the spoon-feeding approach in favor of an educational participatory approach that involves youth in the learning process through group-work assignments.

In addition to the richness of diversity of content and educational approaches and styles that meet the various learners’ needs, in my view what characterizes this programme is that it provides an exceptional opportunity for youth to have a complementary training in the field of democracy in an adequate period of time (each module lasts two days). The programme takes into consideration participants’ educational commitments, which is unique as many other programmes ignore current commitments and therefore prevent participants from attending.

The youth democracy programme in its first version in Tunisia is definitely a pioneer experience that will leave its imprint in the lives of the various participants and, therefore, will reflect on their regions and general surroundings. -- Ichraq, MA candidate in Criminal Sciences