After a project concerning youth, culture and social conditions in our both municipalities we felt a need to develop our results and use a more scientific approach. We heard about the LUPP survey, a local follow-up of youth policy in municipalities. It is developed in Sweden by the Swedish National Board of Youth Affairs and is every year offered to all municipalities and has been used by more than 50% of all. The areas are work, leisure, school, health, politics and influence, sense of safety and future.
LUPP gives the municipalities knowledge about the conditions and also a platform for the youth to speak their minds.
It is also a condition that the results must be disseminated and debated to the citizens. Together we put in a lot of effort to translate and adapt the LUPP into a South African environment and culture and the surveys were carried out 2009 in Karlskrona and 2010 in Pretoria. Now the two municipalities are busy to learn from the study, make comparisons and think about implementation.
From the start we promised all players and stakeholders present at the information and presentation seminar in Pretoria to come back with the results and move from theory to practice. We need to include the youth on both sides in the implementation as well. An important thing is also to identify development areas and learn from each other’s strengths and improve our policies and practice. We have had enquiries from municipalities both in Sweden and from other countries who are interested to use the survey in international partnerships.
