Andreea Apostu and Paul Marc
Andreea Apostu is general secretary at the youth federation from Cluj, and a youth worker. Paul Marc is president of the youth federation from Cluj, and a youth worker
What is your best story of local democracy?
Everything started in 2015, when Cluj-Napoca was the European Youth Capital. Cluj Youth Federation was established after this wonderful year. We wanted to do a follow-up, to have more tools for young people to be involved in the community.
We started with a process to make a youth consultative council—so the city should consult youth about projects in the city. Also we had Com’on Cluj—every year, we had this competition (participatory youth budgeting) where young people (and under Romanian law, young people are between 14 and 35) can just propose things and projects in the community, and projects are chosen. For example, Com'on Cluj produced an experimental device for measuring air quality in the Cluj-Napoca area.
It started from Cluj and then we multiplied it in another small cities, Sfântu Gheorghe and Satu Mare. We are focusing the next three years on further developing this program now in Cluj. We want mini Com'on initiatives for specific groups, minorities, those with disabilities, LGBTQ community, and also for high schoolers, who don’t have a voice actively listened to by the high school.
