Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy

Floris Kreiken (26), former President of Dutch political youth organization Young Democrats, and Zita Schellekens (23), former International Officer of the Young Socialists, have visited Guatemala from 5 to 12 November to exchange experiences on youth empowerment with Guatemalan youth.

Both Floris and Zita have participated in a national youth conference in Guatemala City with almost 200 young politicians. With their experience in youth campaigns, capacity building and organization, Floris and Zita hope to have contributed valuable experiences to the conference of the Guatemalan youth forum. Furthermore, the delegation has traveled to the Alta Verapaz region where they have met with local youth and exchange strategies on how to infuence political decision-making as youth.

This exercise builds on a mission of three delegates from the Guatemalan youth forum in 2007, when they visited the Netherlands for a week to learn more about political youth organization and participation. The programme included a training on debating skills, and introduction of political youth participation in the Netherlands, a visit to the Parliament, a discussion with NIMD staff, a visit to the IPP on the voting indicator, and a visit to the General Assembly of Dutch political youth organization the Young Democrats. After this successful week, a number of possibilities for future cooperation have been identified, which has seen follow-up in this new project.

Floris and Zita have shared some of their experiences in their weblog. A full report will follow.

For more information, please contact the Coordinator of Young NIMD Jeroen Mimpen via jeroenmimpen@nimd.org or + 31 6 166 562 24.