Project: Höör and Kopychyntsi Youth Empowerment Initiative
The overarching goal of Höör and Kopychyntsi is to increase youth engagement in local decision-making. Currently, youths have low awareness of the democratic processes in their community. As a result, their interests are not represented, which in turn creates a growing divide between the youth and local authorities.
The long term goals of the partnership are:
• To hire more staff whose sole responsibility is to work with youth, and to provide learning opportunities for them to grow as professionals
• Increase the percentage of youth involved in local decision-making processes, as well as political and social life of the community
The organisational objectives in Kopychyntsi are focused around staffing and cross-boundary collaboration, as well as community participation on this issue. When it comes to project progress within staffing, municipal staff and politicians are now more involved in youth work.
When it comes to community participation, the project team reports an increase in interest of youth in local decision making. Upcoming activities are aimed at institutionalising and increasing this participation.
One importan aspect of the partnership is to contribute to Ukraine’s EU-accession process: “It is important to do the bottom-up homework. Because we need each other, Ukraine needs European integration for the future and Sweden needs security. On the local level we can achieve sustainable change, we can influence each others political environment”, says Bogdan Kelichavyi, who is the current mayor of Kopychyntsi.
The project group from Kopychyntsi is focusing on learning how the political system works in Sweden, how citizens, especially youth, can take part in the decision-making processes on the local level, and how education about democracy and human rights is organized in the Höör community.
The partnership is part of the ICLD Network for Democratic Resilience.
The Höör-Kopychyntsi Delegation at the fourth DR Network meeting in Tallinn, November 2025