The simple but brilliant concept of the Open Chair Democracy Talk (OCDT) was hatched by our Youth Fellow Michele Castrezzati when we visited Athens last September. It became an instant success and important focus for our activities. So far, the think tank has performed OCDTs in Athens, Gothenburg, Moscow, and Stockholm.

Now, for the first time ever, the International Youth Think Tank launch a grand scale Open Chair Democracy Talks campaign. During the weekend 1-3 April, in nineteen cities all over Europe and in one city in North America, Youth Fellows will be taking to the streets, talking to passers-by citizens about their fears and hopes for society and democracy.

The Open Chair Democracy Talks is not only a valuable source of inspiration and ideas for the work of the IYTT, but most importantly, gives ordinary citizens an opportunity to express themselves and make their opinion heard. What the method shows, is that empowerment can be as easy as placing two chairs in the street and start talking.

The cities taking part in the OCDT campaign weekend are Aarhus, Athens, Frankfurt, Ghent, Gothenburg, Grenoble, Hamburg, Istanbul, Joensuu, Kristiansand, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Newcastle, Salamanca, Sofia, Stockholm, Tirana, Warsaw, and Charleston (South Carolina, U.S.)

You can follow the progress of the OCDT campaign on our Instagram and other social media channels @iythinktank. Full reports from the talks will be published on our website in due time, and a special event at Lindholmen Democracy Talks 20 April will be dedicated to the method and to the outcome of the campaign.

Read about our previous OCDTs.

See the short movie about our OCDTs.