Festival closes Cascais Youth Participatory Budget 23-24

On 31 May, the Quinta da Alagoa Urban Park hosted the OP Jovem Festival, a party marking the end of the Cascais Youth Participatory Budget 2023-2024, bringing together teachers and students from 16 schools from all the parishes in the municipality of Cascais, including the newcomer Estoril School of Hospitality and Tourism. Each school nominates an "OPJovem class" which is responsible for running the project in partnership with the school management and the "OPJovem" teachers. Throughout the school year, in training and capacity-building sessions, they explore and learn more about a wide range of areas such as citizenship and participation, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Children's and Young People's Rights, Gender Equality and Financial Literacy. It is up to young people to validate and review the rules, organise and manage the Public Participation Sessions, monitor the technical analysis phase and ensure that everything goes smoothly during the vote. The OPJovem Festival was the culmination of a year's hard work, in which the concepts learnt were revisited in a playful way. The sum of points resulting from the games played and participation was rewarded with a prize, this time won by class 7.º B from the Frei Gonçalo de Azevedo Primary and Secondary School in S. Domingos de Rana. The real prize for the work done by the school community goes to the schools: Cascais City Council provides a sum of 10,000 euros to be applied to the most voted projects that were previously presented and scrutinised by the students themselves, with the aim of improving the space or the students' lives. 400 projects were submitted for analysis, of which 16 were selected in the final vote and unveiled at this final ceremony. The "OPJovem" classes receive their cheque for ten thousand euros to implement the winning projects. Present at the OPJovem Festival were the presidents of Alcabideche Parish Council, José Filipe Ribeiro, Carcavelos and Parede Parish Union, Nuno Alves, and Cascais-Estoril Parish Council, represented by Noel Menezes.