Human RightsAdvocacy & Youth Voice
We are a human rights education foundation that works alongside young people and communities. We turn workshop knowledge into public notes, policy-facing commentary, and youth co-authorship.
What advocacy means to us
Four concrete things we do, in order of how often they happen. Tap or hover any card to see the working detail.
How a workshop becomes a public voice
An advocacy claim is easy to make. The path from a circle of chairs to a published note is not. Click through the five steps.
Step 01 · In the room
A rights issue surfaces — usually through theatre, sometimes through a hard conversation.
It is rarely a single moment. It is a pattern across a workshop, a season, a region: a question that keeps coming back. The facilitation team notices it. They write it down with the date, the place, and the method that surfaced it.
At this stage nothing leaves the room. The work is to notice, not to broadcast.
Step 02 · Consent check
The participant decides, freely and specifically, whether and how their experience can be used.
The check is concrete. It is not a generic consent form signed at the door. It asks, again, before any pattern is written up: can this be named? Can the workshop be named? Can a line of dialogue be quoted? The default is private.
A refusal is respected without follow-up. A "yes, with limits" is treated as a contract.
Step 03 · Written note
The pattern becomes a short, evidence-based note. Never a named individual without consent.
The note names the method, the region, the season, the pattern. It does not name a young person unless that person has consented in Step 2 to being named — and that consent is logged.
The note is short on purpose. It is meant to be read by a partner, a municipality, or a policy person in three minutes.
Step 04 · Named co-authorship, with consent
Where a participant wants to, they are credited by name as a co-author.
This is the youth rapporteur / co-authorship mechanism. It is not a generic "youth consultation." It is a working role: the young person reviews the note, shapes the framing, and is named on the piece.
Where they do not want to be named, they are still credited — as "a participant in CWM workshop, season X, region Y." The credit is real either way.
Step 05 · Published, or fed into a policy conversation
The note goes on Insights & Policy, into a partner conversation, or into a named initiative.
This is the moment the room reaches the rule. The note is published on Insights & Policy. Where appropriate, it is also fed into a Salto/KA2 partner conversation, or into an initiative like Voices of the Future.
If it is not yet strong enough to publish, it goes back to the workshop team for another season. We do not publish what we cannot stand behind.
Where this connects to real EU mechanisms, not invented ones
Two existing mechanisms we are extending through our practice. Neither is a CWM invention; both are places where a CWM workshop can usefully add something.
Voices of the Future — local and theatre-based
Launched under the EU Strategy on Intergenerational Fairness with the Committee of the Regions, inviting local and regional actors to help shape their region's future. A CWM session uses theatre so young people shape a regional question rather than fill in a form. Status: in design.
Youth Check companion methodology
The European Commission has committed to a Youth Check on new policy proposals. CWM is developing a practical, theatre-based companion method that municipalities and organisations can use to consult young people for real, rather than survey them. Status: in design. It extends, rather than replaces, the Quality Framework.
We connect to mechanisms that already exist rather than inventing our own parallel structure — that is a deliberate choice, not a lack of ambition.
Where this stands today
An honest public account of where the mechanism is now, what is being built, and what we are aiming at. No internal targets on this page — those live in the framework PDF.
What is in place today
Honest public account of how participant insight enters CWM's advocacy.
- An honest public account of how participant insight enters our advocacy is published on this page and on Insights & Policy.
- Named examples exist of projects where young people changed a plan, not only commented on one. They are linked from each Insights note.
- Every published piece names the method and the region. Where consent allows, the participant is named too.
What is being assembled
A running youth co-authorship mechanism with public output.
- A youth advisory / co-authorship group, convened in the regions where we already work, that shapes published pieces.
- Policy and field notes tied to real EU and UN policy cycles, published regularly enough to be useful to partners.
- The Youth Check companion methodology and the Voices of the Future contribution, both in design, with a public pilot in a named region.
What we are aiming at
A youth voice structure independent enough that it can publicly disagree with CWM.
- The clearest possible proof that this is voice, not decoration, is a structure that can say no — to CWM, to a partner, to a funder.
- Published disagreement, where it happens, is logged and linked from the relevant note. It is not hidden.
- The measure of success is not how often we are quoted. It is whether the structure can change a plan.
What you can expect from us
A short, honest list. As you scroll, each promise ticks in.
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Named methods, named limits, named evidence.
Every claim we make links to a specific CWM facilitation method, a specific region, and a specific piece of evidence. If we cannot link it, we do not claim it.
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Young people and communities credited as co-authors where they shaped the work.
Credit is not a courtesy. It is a working role: review, framing, and name on the piece. Where they ask for limits, we honour them.
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Advocacy described as it is now — not oversold.
This page names what is real and what is still in design. Internal targets and KPIs live in the framework PDF, not here.
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No claim of a lobbying operation we do not run.
We are an education foundation. Where we connect to policy, we do so through existing mechanisms and partners, and we say so plainly.
Participation is not measured by who was invited to speak.
It is measured by who could change the plan.
Get involved — Youth Voice
If you are a young person, educator, or partner who wants to be part of how this mechanism is built, leave your details. We read every message.
1017 BR Amsterdam
The Netherlands