The canton of Neuchâtel is organizing a young session this fall. Called “100 votes”, it will therefore bring together 100 young people from 14 to 20 years old at the Château de Neuchâtel on October 28, where the Grand Council is located. On the menu: debates on mental health, digital technology or even discrimination.
Sensitizing young people to policy is now in law. There Young session has been registered since 2024 in article 14 of the law on support for extra-curricular youth activities. This session is therefore compulsory and recurrent; It must be held once every three years.
The objective is to make young people aware of the exercise of political rights. It is also a question of making young voices heard and giving them a framework in which they and they can express themselves.
Choice of essential themes
The political system may seem dusty, so how to make you want to participate in a session in a parliament? The answer goes in particular through the chosen themes which directly concern young people: climate change or access to culture for example.
On D -Day, an animation team will accompany them to ensure that everyone can express themselves in this context which may seem impressive.
Also a less formal framework
It will also be a question of giving the floor to young people who do not participate directly in the session, so that their ideas “come to the ears of the cantonal administration”, indicates Estelle Brosteaux, project manager at the Neuchâtel service of the protection of the adult and the youth, questioned Sunday in the 12:30 am of the RTS.
“There will also be decentralized commissions to allow young people outside the session to express themselves on these themes and allow them to give their proposals in a less formal and perhaps also less intimidating setting,” she explains.
At the end of the session, the proposals of young people will be written in the form of petitions which will be submitted to the Grand Council.
Radio subject: Deborah Sohlbank and Marjorie Besse
Adaptation web: Julie Liardet