Issued by the Youth Service
The Gibraltar Youth Service continues with its promotion of
"Active Citizenship". A mixed group of ten young people is currently involved in
a project that runs until December 2004.
The project looks at Gibraltar's development as a community
within Europe focusing amongst other things on the forthcoming European Elections. Young
people have already started working towards this project. The main task at present is to
be able to develop critical analysis to express personal opinions and views in a
constructive way whilst respecting the views of others.
So far, the group has been able to explore different kinds of
political systems. The young people have discussed and debated how politics is influenced
by different ideologies.
The group learned about the origins of the present European
Union that commenced after the Second World War when a number of European Nations opted to
work for a common good. The group is currently learning about these origins and other
facts that highlight the complex workings of the different European institutions.
In their efforts to learn from local representatives about their
views on the forthcoming elections the group held a meeting on Tuesday 11 May with local
political representatives. The young people were able to learn from their guests about the
relevance of these elections for Gibraltar and were able to put their questions and views
to them. The group presented each speaker with a small booklet on the rights of every
European Citizen as a token of appreciation and as a proof of their work on this matter.
