What interests young people?
At the ‘betterLÄND’ youth forum, randomly selected young people from Baden-Württemberg developed ideas and suggestions on how the Ministry of the Environment can better involve and represent young people.
To ensure that many different perspectives came together, 10,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 25 were randomly selected and invited by post. By 9 October 2024, 649 interested parties (6.5 per cent) had responded. From all the responses, 50 young people were selected according to various characteristics (sex, age, educational background and migration background) so that a group as diverse as possible came together.
Five sessions
The young participants met five times in total. The venues were Sinsheim on 8 November, Stuttgart on 23 November and 30 January. The Youth Forum ended in Stuttgart. Two online sessions took place in between.
Participants could take time off from school, training or work. Since the journey to the event locations in Sinsheim and Stuttgart was long for some, shuttles were organised or, in addition to train costs, travel costs by car were also covered. The members of the youth forum had the opportunity to stay in a youth hostel and have breakfast at the expense of the organisers on all three on-site dates. The young people also received an expense allowance of €200 for their participation.
Proposals go to environment ministry
The betterLÄND results will be received by Environment Minister Walker. Many people at the Ministry are also working on projects such as a sustainability programme for sports clubs, the Voluntary Ecological Year (FÖJ) and many other topics. The Ministry's staff have formulated questions in advance and are also looking forward to the answers. In addition, the Young Platform of the Baden-Württemberg Sustainability Strategy is using the results to improve its work.
The results of the youth forum will be published as soon as possible.