EPiC - Empowering students Participation in Campaigning is a project that OBESSU is currently carrying out. Throughout this project OBESSU will work until June 2024 on empowering young people to engage within the decision making processes on their local, national and European level, and to practice their right to vote.
Moreover, voting at 16 is one of the core advocacy points for OBESSU, both from the perspective of increasing the number of European countries that allow young people to vote at 16 and recognising the importance of youth participation within the shaping of the future of Europe, and from the perspective of the changes that are recommended to take place within the educational systems in order to address this importance and inform young people to actively engage within the democratic processes relevant to them. To sum up, the project aims at:
● Informing and educating young people about participation, democracy, and the importance of youth participation in electoral processes.
● Increasing the engagement of school students and school students unions in the outreach towards young people.
● Addressing the need to engage first time voters and young people that would otherwise not vote.
● Building the capacity to design and implement successful political campaigns.
● Developing a manifesto that school students unions and students can use for campaigning towards the European Parliament elections.