The Oxford Health Alliance facilitated a Youth Summit in Brussels on 10/11 October 2006, sponsored by Sudler & Hennessey.
The event was representative of the aims of the youth programme at OxHA, which endeavours to:
- encourage policy makers to incorporate the perspective of young people when considering new initiatives; and
- work with young people to promote behavioural change around the three risk factors to their peers.
Nine young people aged 18 to 26 from across Europe met in Brussels for two days on 10 and 11 October 2006 to talk to key representatives from the European Commission, the EU Presidency and industry. The summit took the form of a senate-style session in the European Parliament, and provided an opportunity for young people to communicate their concerns on issues of chronic disease prevention, lifestyle behaviours and the development of health policy.
The main purposes of the event were to bring a young person’s perspective to the development of health policy and to provide a best-practice case study for youth engagement with policy-makers. The meeting was filmed, and this can be used to illustrate to other groups of young people how best to conduct similar exercises with their regional, national or local decision-makers. (Video of the event will be online soon.)
Mr Erdem Erginal from the office of the Commissioner for Health, noted that any future involvement with young representatives on health promotion requires that the policy-makers take an active interest in issues of relevance to young people. They are hopeful that a dialogue with young people can be set up on this basis.
Click here >> for more information on the key points that arose from the discussion.
Click here >> for a checklist to use when planning a dialogue to engage young people in health and policy issues.