At 21 years old, she is the youngest councilor in the Meppel city council, but she is too old for her own plan. Liselot Raat (VVD) has campaigned for the arrival of the youth council.
She has been doing this for about a year and a half now, together with her faction and the Christian Union faction. Together, the two parties have now presented a plan to the municipal council to set up a youth council.
“The intention is not for them to play ‘guess’ themselves,” she explains the plan. “They may provide advice to the municipal council. The aim is to lower the threshold for participating in Meppel, with society and with policy.”
The municipal board is enthusiastic about the plan. “A lot of policy is being made about and for young people, such as alcohol prevention, healthy living policy and the Youth Act. It is important to also make this policy together with young people. It is a great shame that this source of knowledge and experience is now being left behind. while policies can be introduced that are better tailored to young people,” the board writes.
The city council also sees opportunities, but also has doubts. “When I was installed in the council in 2014, I was the youngest in the council at 23 years old. Now I am the third youngest,” says SP member Xander Topma. “The rejuvenation of this ‘institution’ is not happening quickly.” He says he fears that the youth council will become a talking club and not enough of a do-it-all club.
The CDA is also still puzzling and the PvdA is also ‘still on the fence’ about the position, although Jasper Prick says on behalf of the party that it is a great initiative and that “we should actually do everything to involve society.”
The aim of the young people is to provide solicited and unsolicited advice to the municipality on topics that are of interest to young people. The idea of ChristenUnie and VVD is for two or three council members to guide the young people in this, but several parties in the council propose to have this done by external experts.
The city council will vote on the plan in two weeks. If the plan goes ahead, the municipality will allocate five thousand euros annually for it. The youth council can, for example, follow a training course, invite a speaker or attend meetings. “That seems like a very modest budget,” said Prick (PvdA). If external experts are used, this amount will increase.
So far, two young people have registered with Liselot Raat who want to work on a youth council.