We want to teach kids democratic skills from day one at school. To do so, we will prompt the grown-ups and youth in those schools to make decisions together. We will do so with the help of a participatory budgeting exercise, the aim of which is to involve the school community in distribution of the school’s funds. In this way we will increase the level of transparency, trust and overall engagement of youth into school affairs, while teaching them responsibility and democracy first hand.

Vilnius, Lithuania.

We believe democracy is a habit. We want youth to learn to ask questions and understand what rights and responsibilities they have. Our initiative gives young people a chance to experience democracy first hand and creates a good example others can learn from.

1) Increased level of participation of students in the School’s decision-making processes;
2) Better understanding of school governance and the role of accountability by the students.

1) Selecting the schools (1 or 2) where the initiative will be tested;
2) Engaging the school’s community into discussions on integrity and accountability;
3) Testing the participatory budgeting initiative at selected schools (with the help of the social designers and financial experts);
4) Measuring success of the initiative (with the help of sociologists);
5) Developing a methodology for other schools in Lithuania and abroad on how to set up similar initiatives in their environments.

Promoting and increasing youth integrity has been of a strategic priority for Transparency International Lithuania since 2010. With various studies showing that non-integral academic behavior often translates into corrupt practices in adult life, we are determined to further work on this topic.

Direct reach: community of selected schools (administration, teachers and students);
Indirect reach: other Lithuanian schools (through the Integrity Network of Schools that currently unites every 7th school in the country), members of the global TI Network (currently in more than 100 countries).

Anything goes! :)