On the threshold of the think tank’s fifth anniversary

When we started the think tank in 2019, we could not imagine that our fourth international youth conference in November 2022 would generate 217 applications from 57 countries. Just as little did we expect that The New York Times would profile three of our Youth Fellows in full coverage on October 7, or that we in September 2022 would publish The Handbook for Innovative Democracy: Policy Proposals for Decision Makers. This is to say, that 2022 was a very good year for the IYTT, that I am extremely proud of our Youth Fellows, and that I look very much forward to 2023, the year that marks our fifth anniversary.

At this point, our Youth Fellows are tirelessly empowering people through the Open Chair Democracy Talks. By now they have run talks on 30 places in Europe and once in the US. The IYTT has thereby gathered the democracy longings expressed by hundreds and hundreds of passers-by. An innovative way to spread the strong messages from all these voices in an artistic form was launched by assigning playwright Jacob Hirdwall at The Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm to write a short play based on the talks. It was with great pride, that Conversation with Strangers premiered at the the 10th anniversary Athens Democracy Forum on 30 September.

Looking ahead to this spring’s activities, we are now launching a Youth Fellow’s Policy Brief on how to widen recruitment to higher education, alongside the second edition of The Handbook for Innovative Democracy – but also, a completely new empowerment endeavour in which Youth Fellows will be guiding high school classes through democracy workshops.

With this, the winter edition of our newsletter the Loop, comes an overview of the IYTT’s recent and upcoming events, activities and publications. We trust you will enjoy it.