Ayuntamientos Juveniles | Daniel Abreu Mejía | TEDxSantoDomingo

after what I am absolutely

convinced that teenage children and

young people can change the world and not

I always thought about it and in fact when

first time I had the idea with time

I discovered that I underestimated the

ability to have children ago

12 years I had the opportunity to talk

with the director of UNICEF in the country

Dominican republic and she told me that

a group of teenagers from a

poor community of the border had

saying

we do not want you to come

to bring us projects

Teach us how to do it and best of them the

money to us that we

we do and she told me look at that idea

like but I do not know how to put it in

practice we do not have the

structure for something like this to work and

from there we came up with good

but why can not we make them

the same children and adolescents who do

your own project because we have to

come the adults to tell them what

is what they have to do and

we started to develop an idea that

eventually it became a

project called youth councils

children and the idea was to develop

municipalities of children and adolescents

real city councils

here the important thing of this idea because

another country in the world

We knew that there were simulations that

they are born as a game we have not

we want to do it really another we want

that the children choose their

representatives of children and youth and

that it is authentic that it is a process

authentic politician and that they be the same

children adolescent girls from municipalities

we wanted to do it locally that they

choose

who want to be represented and

what are the projects that they

they want to do and this idea that a

principle was it did not seem like it was a

pure madness but good we do not know

no country that has done and we said

but we’re going to do it and try it

and I personally had a lot

concern that politicians

adults were going to try to manipulate the

process because in the end we are doing

policy and we take many measures to

that this did not happen and in fact what

important part of this project was to go back to

recover the real definition of the

politics and politics is the art of

serve the community and that children

teenagers learned not in theory

but practice that is true

so we did this process in which

the children had to present

proposals nobody could be a candidate or

candidate without a solution proposal

what enables them we go so that they

they could do this so he could

write projects for children and

teenagers

it was absolutely forbidden to speak

wrong of another candidate who emptied

automatically removed there was no

money in between

everyone had a poster for everyone a

poster for everyone and when the

promotion that will be an election campaign

real went to television they were made

rallies

the difference was that they were all together

and it was not a competition

that was not the sense it was really not

it was that the best winner would win

best idea

the best proposal was a debate of

proposals

we are talking about children of 11 12 13 16

years and in many cases those who won

they were children of just 11 and 12 years old

I was really surprised at the end

We started in 55 municipalities and it was very

successful so much that years later the bbc

london must cover the selection

three Dominicans and ended up doing two

reports of this project and just one

let’s see this video a part of that

reported the bbc of this experience there

meetings in the town hall of

Asua a municipality in the south of the

Dominican Republic

here the politicians do not exceed 18

years and the debates are about the

problems of children and young people

this is one of the city councils

children and youth an initiative in

the one that children vote for

representatives and work together in the

issues that affect them

with the aim of giving voice to the most

small have been launched a

total of 16 youth councils and

children throughout the republic

Dominican but do not think that this

it’s a children’s game

the initiatives have a real impact

in their communities and this is a

story that we are going to tell you in four

chapters I just told you the first

chapter and I want a person that

he was a member of this project he tells

your experience I will not tell you

but it is she who tells you

who lived in this experience

good morning my name is john a

margarita núñez

I am 18 years old and participate

youth council having just 12

years in the municipality of baní in the

2011 management

participate the youth council

childish has been the greatest experience

I ‘ve had in these years of life

I imagined I was 12 and now I have 18

what to participate in a project in which

be so democratic to you it impacts you in

that a child barely eight years old can

vote for you can see in piece

ability to guide that ability to

lead that ability to promote

projects and not just promote them and not

carry out projects based on children

without

the teenagers of a municipality that you

mark totally in your whole life be

that you do not have to wait to have

18 years to make a change in your

municipality to make a change in your

community

you only being a child is the child

that all of you are awake what

in order to generate change the republic

Dominican have been made around

300 projects nationwide that have

come from children to you says a child that

Dominican republic sometimes we do not give

much the opportunity that a child does not

can make a decision can not have

a space for participation

that makes youth and children’s council

either if I had not gone through

youth and children’s council and me

I was here I was not in front of

that audience expressing my experience

in my municipality in baní very proud of

be banileja have been made 70

projects in the 70 projects thanks to

70 project in different areas of

education sport culture medium environment

but one of the projects that has most

impacted has been impacting the

childhood

we think 13 children that we are

we were 13 million then we

we locate in a very poor community

of baní called villa progress better

known as the torto imagines the

first name

we went there and we had the

opportunity we say the opportunity to

interview more than 3 135 children

wow we gave the opportunity are children

to say what is the social problem

that has already with that survey we

we realized that still the

Dominican republic there are children who

they do not know their rights

one wonders there is still the

possibility for a child to know which

are your rights and what we did was already

we put in talks with the mayor without

movement the community empower the

community the community did not help to go to

the houses not only we arrived

there that we serve the problem

set but the community sector

project and today is a community

most organized of the municipality

that’s really impact another of the

projects was to give her a smile

little girls

we went to the orphanage of

there are children in baní sayona full and without

parents and mothers a project that I proposed

and we all did it really and I went and

that girls like me had no father or

mother and that I complained in a moment

I said I do not have this I do not have what

another milestone to be able to transmit a smile

that girl

that’s worth saying that that girl

more than one change needs a problem

social something that happens to you have of your

childhood can generate a change that happens

the juvenile city council as

tita the opportunity that your rivals

that one has to have 18 years of

age to do advocacy as he thinks

that we should know and give it a little more

of opportunity to young people simply

I had infant more developed of such

developed way to develop my

skills as a leader is nowadays

can be here I find out of my

comfort zone cried in town halls

juvenile childish when something to much

people did not close the door to many

people of our province will not close

the door for everyone and we have to

achieve we realize we have made two

courts a field valued at 800,000

weight but such a shocking thing was

that we participate in the

participatory budget and we go to the

community help people to choose

his work and also to choose the

people who were going to represent that

community to a 12 year old boy did that

and where bayone núñez one of my

dream is to make the set of

young people a global organization of

emerging leaders who do different

projects and my other big dream is the

President of the Dominican Republic

[Applause]

[Music]

now I will introduce you to the third chapter

Where is the Youth City Hall going?

childish good I am randy custodian

brito

good later what’s good what they see

there is a picture of when I was in

the youth and children’s councils

at that time I was 17 years old and I was the

first youth council

the president of the council of aldermen

of the 25th city council that daniel mentioned

of the first pilot project whose

participants of the first one that was done in

asua at that time had already entered

the university and the question of

why we are coming of age

let’s do

what will happen to the city councils

youthful then that experience

derived in that we created the network of advisers

of youth and children’s councils

that has emerged to give advice to the

current efforts and continue to give

continuity to the works that we

we started after all that happened

many things in my life

I entered the university and among others

things what is happening today with me and

with many young people is that we are

advising there are many young people who have

out of town hall juveniles that are

advisers to mayors and mayors who

they direct the girls’ departments of

its municipalities that are the assistant of

legislators who work instances

governmental and what you see

here on stage today is a unicorn

he’s hunting dinosaurs

I am the first elected alderman for a

real town hall because the others are not

lie but people assume that not that

they are not, it’s not that it’s not a

reality

I am the first elected alderman in the

asua municipality that has left the

youth councils

i

and that room where I was where I was

made the video of the bbc is my place

of work

in that place that is my house the living room of the

council of city councilmen

municipal of afa

I am the youngest alderman of all the

municipality and the region too

so what I am doing now is

enforce the law in the

Youth and children’s councils

The first thing he teaches us is taught

is the parliamentary parliamentary order as

City Hall function and it has been a shame

for me to get to a town hall with

people who are more than ten years old

according to the management and find me not

they know they do not know the municipal law

who do not know the constitution and

related laws for management

transparent inclusive and all that has not

either the easy story is not

pink color

I have had to fight many prejudices

many stereotypes

everything starts only with seeing the profile

suspect that I have now and the app

it’s a boy a boy who does not have

political experience that does not know of

politics that is not political that was

artist and that he can not direct a

city and us in the city councils

juvenile

we have been being trained we have been

formed to make municipalists and

our idea now is to continue

reproducing and I am a vector of

I change a bridge between the social and the

political

I understand that the personal is political and

that it is a personal decision to change the

look change the world and I’m

trying together with daniel and with jona that

he invited them

we are trying to change the world

from our space that we call zone

of comfort

and a chapter that is the fourth and

is the one that we will complete all

together and with our inner child every

one of us can change the world

that surrounds us thanks

[Applause]