Children and young people’s assemblies: The next generation of democracy
What happens when young people are given the space, trust, and respect to rise to the occasion of democratic decision making?
In this conversation with youth assembly members, we explore how children and young people’s citizens’ assemblies are creating spaces for young voices to shape the present and the future - not as token representatives, but with imaginative, fearless thinking and ideas not limited by convention.
Claudia Chwalisz, CEO and Founder, DemocracyNext, spoke to Laura Jane Mowlds, 19, from Ireland, who participated in Ireland’s first children and young people’s assembly on biodiversity loss; Ina Vonach, 19, from Austria, who joined a regional citizens’ assembly; and Katie Reid, Child Rights International Network (CRIN), a child rights specialist focused on child and youth participation in (inter)national governance, democracy, planning and environmental/climate justice. The CRIN Children and Democracy Network launched in March 2026.
This interview was recorded as part of our ongoing exploration of democratic futures for our Another Democratic Future Spotify podcast. Listen to previous episodes and subscribe here.
The following has been edited for clarity and brevity. Listen or watch the full interview on Spotify or YouTube.
CC: For listeners who might be hearing about this for the first time - what are children and young people’s citizens’ assemblies, and why do we need them?
Katie: Citizens’ assemblies involving children and young people have been growing rapidly over the last five or six years. The core idea builds on what was already happening in children’s participation through participatory budgeting, children’s parliaments, and youth councils - but applies the deliberative assembly model more rigorously.
We’ve seen a few distinct models emerge. The first is a parallel process, like the one in Scotland’s Climate Assembly, where an under-16s assembly ran alongside the adult assembly. They had their own deliberation journey, but came together at key moments to share learning and recommendations.
Ireland’s Children and Young People’s Assembly on Biodiversity Loss followed a similar structure. Alongside these, we’re also seeing standalone assemblies - using democratic lottery with only children and young people involved - and issue-specific assemblies focused on topics of particular relevance to youth, like the Swiss assembly on mental health.
The fundamental reason we need these is simple: children are excluded from electoral democracy by default. Deliberative processes offer a legitimate, rights-based alternative that gives them a real say in decisions that affect their lives.
CC: How does sortition (random selection) actually work in practice with children?
Katie: It’s worth saying first that involving children in decision making is not a new phenomenon – children have been participating in democratic life in various ways for many years. What’s genuinely new and exciting about applying democratic lottery specifically is what it does to the nature of that participation. It means inclusion isn’t based on merit, on who’s most popular, or on being a teacher’s favourite. It’s based on chance. That sends a powerful message: everyone has the potential to be involved in democracy, and building that understanding early matters.
How you actually do it is a big question, and one that requires creativity. With adults, you can draw on census data or an electoral register. With children, that infrastructure simply doesn’t exist, so you have to think outside the box. We’re genuinely in an exciting phase of imagining how this can work across different contexts.
Schools are often the natural starting point – they’re a fantastic institution in the sense that they’re where you find large numbers of children and young people in daily life, which makes random selection through school networks very practical. But it’s equally important to recognise that school isn’t a positive experience for everyone. So complementing that with routes through other associations, community organisations, or social work services is essential if you want the selection to be genuinely representative. In Ireland, we broadcast an open invitation on the children’s news channel and created our own dataset from responses before drawing a stratified sample. There’s no single right answer, but the principle of random selection is absolutely achievable – it just takes some lateral thinking.
“Change is not owned by a select few”: Laura’s story
CC: Laura, can you tell us about your experience as an assembly member?
Laura: I was 16 when I took part in Ireland’s first Children and Young People’s Assembly on Biodiversity Loss in September 2022. Looking back, I can only describe it as absolutely pivotal.
What made it so powerful was the realisation that something I’d always seen as distant - policy, governance, national decision-making - was suddenly within reach.
We weren’t just learning about change; we were actively shaping it. There was this quiet but powerful understanding in the room that our voices, though young, carried weight. That feeling is indescribable.
There were uncomfortable moments. Stepping into spaces traditionally reserved for adults, wondering if what I had to say was ‘enough’. But I’ve come to believe that there’s no growth in the comfort zone, and no comfort in the growth zone. The discomfort was the lesson. Confidence isn’t something you wait for – it grows when you choose to speak anyway.
What I took away most profoundly is that change is not owned by a select few. Children will grow in the space you allow them. The assembly showed me that when individuals are given space, trust, and respect, they rise to meet it in ways that can surpass expectations.
CC: How did you end up applying? And how did you feel about the lottery aspect — meeting people who hadn’t specifically sought this out?
Laura: An email came through my school account from my deputy principal. I was in Transition Year - Ireland’s non-academic school year - so I had more time, and this felt like something I genuinely wanted to do. I applied, got lucky, and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
As for the group, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But what struck me immediately was how much everyone appreciated just being listened to. Even across different ages and backgrounds, people kept coming back to: ‘wow, what we’re saying is actually being heard, and changes are being made from our ideas.’ The passion for biodiversity was real, and it was amazing to see it in such young people.
CC: What happened after? Did the assembly have an impact?
Laura: We brought our calls to action to the adult Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity, for them to consider and respond to. But I think the impact went beyond the specific recommendations. It demonstrated that children and young people know what they’re doing – that our ideas are more substantive than people often assume. That felt like a turning point for children in democracy.
Being the youngest in the room: Ina’s experience
CC: Ina, your experience was quite different. You were part of a mostly adult assembly. Can you tell us more?
Ina: I participated in a regional citizens’ assembly in Vorarlberg on school education. In this process, 1,000 signatures on a topic triggers a mandatory assembly - and I was randomly selected by letter. I was excited. But by the end, I was also frustrated.
At first it took time for the group to become comfortable, but it did start to feel like a community. The problem was that there were only two of us - me and one other boy - who were still in school. And when the adults discussed education, I felt they were talking about us, not with us. They had this overly positive view, focused on small improvements. I felt the need to intervene, to say: this is what school actually feels like from the inside. They were genuinely grateful when I did. But it shouldn’t have needed that.
The process also had a lower turnout than expected - 600 invitations sent, 22 people showed up, 18 of whom were women. So it wasn’t as representative as it could have been. I’d have loved to see more young people, and more students specifically.
CC: Can you tell us more about the project you’re working on to spread awareness of citizens’ assemblies?
Ina: It grew out of my participation in the assembly. Through the Los Jetzt project - an alumni network of young people from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland who’ve all been part of citizens’ assemblies - we came together for a weekend in Konstanz to think about how to get more young people interested and informed. Everyone kept saying they’d never heard of citizens’ assemblies before taking part, which felt like a real problem.
We discussed leaflets and information packs, but honestly - no one wants to read pages and pages of something. So I suggested a game instead. A lighter atmosphere, where you come together, play, talk, and learn without it feeling like homework. The group agreed, and we split into two: one team focused on gathering the information that needed to be conveyed, the other - my team - started building the game itself. There’s already a prototype, though we’re not quite happy enough to release it yet!
CC: Super! We can’t wait to hear what happens next. Can I ask you both what you think about the tension between including young people in adult processes versus creating separate spaces for children?
Laura: I think we need both. There are benefits to children having their own space - where ideas aren’t shaped or constrained by adult thinking, where they can be unbound by tradition. But there’s also real value in intergenerational collaboration. The two approaches serve different purposes, and I’d love to see the results of both compared.
Ina: The most important thing is just to include children more - whatever the format. Start somewhere. You can make it better next time.
Trends, impact, and what comes next
CC: Katie, you’ve been working in this space for a decade now. What are the key trends you’re seeing?
Katie: The most notable shift has been the move to lower the age threshold for adult citizens’ assemblies - involving 16 and 17-year-olds, even in countries where they can’t yet vote. That’s fascinating from a rights perspective, and raises real questions: could deliberative democracy actually support the case for lowering the voting age?
We’re also seeing assemblies addressing topics of particular significance to young people - Germany has been running a national citizens’ assembly on education for five years now, involving both children and adults. France recently held an assembly focused on children’s time - how hours of the day are structured around children - which included consultations with children and some intergenerational deliberation.
What we really want to see is children not treated as a ‘nice to have’, or as a photo opportunity, but as genuine participants in intergenerational deliberation. And there’s a key question of stewardship: how do we ensure that recommendations made today are held to account across generations?
One of the most exciting trends is children and young people themselves becoming advocates for these processes - building alumni networks, championing their calls to action years later. In Ireland, we still have an active group from the 2022 assembly - people who were seven years old at the time - still engaged and pushing for change.
CC: Can you share one story that captures the wider impact these processes can have on individuals?
Katie: One assembly member from Ireland - who told this story at the United Nations in Geneva last October - learned about chemical spraying and pesticide use during the assembly. When she got home, she advocated to her local horticultural group to stop using harmful chemicals on plants in their village. They agreed. The whole group shifted towards biodiverse gardening. That’s a real, tangible change - run as a campaign, won by a young person who took her learning and did something with it. Hearing her tell that story to world delegates was extraordinary.
And that ripple effect is important too. When you involve children, you bring their whole village along. Parents, carers, friends, schools - everyone around an assembly member is affected by their participation. The impact is far wider than any policy report alone can capture.
Recommendations for governments and organisations
CC: What would you say to governments - or to museums, universities, pension funds, and other organisations - who are considering holding a children and young people’s assembly?
Ina: Don’t wait until it’s perfect. It will be hard to get the representation right, and not everyone will be available on the weekend you’ve chosen. That’s okay. Start anywhere, learn from others who have already done it, and make it better next time. The most important thing is that the people who are actually experiencing something get to speak - not just the people who think they know what those people are experiencing.
Laura: Normalise it. If children and young people are consistently asked for their opinions on matters that affect them, it sparks their engagement and their belief that their voice matters. That normalisation, at scale, could transform how a whole generation relates to democracy.
And as I said before: give children the space to think without adults in the room sometimes, so their ideas aren’t tarnished by convention. But also create the spaces where those ideas meet adult experience and expertise. We need both.
Resources
Here’s the link to CRIN’s website, their page about children’s rights and deliberative democracy, and their latest article about trends/community of practice.
KNOCA has produced guidance on children and young people’s involvement in citizens’ assemblies.
Watch this recording of CRIN’s webinar for the launch of guidance in late 2024.
Explore Ireland’s Children and Young People’s Assembly on Biodiversity Loss with their final report, film and impact report. Watch the recording of the children giving evidence in the Irish House of Parliament about the assembly, and two of the assembly members’ speeches in the United Nations Forum on Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law in Geneva about their experiences being in a citizens’ assembly and why this matters for climate governance: Panel 1 [02:00:51 - 02:11:23]: https://lnkd.in/dJTeEqZ5 / Panel 2 [01:03:54 - 01:13:41]: https://lnkd.in/dZJ5m7dh
Listen to this episode on Spotify, and find free resources including the Assembly Guide and research papers at demnext.org
📡 On the radar
Discover how three European cities are strengthening democracy through citizen participation in this 20-minute documentary by Loraine Blumenthal, presented by Better Politics Foundation and Alliance of European Mayors - Mayors of Europe.
Mozambique is launching a series of innovative climate assemblies to decide how natural resource revenues build climate resilience in local communities. Follow Fundação MASC on LinkedIn for updates.
V-Dem has released their Democracy Report 2026 which includes over 32 million data points for 202 countries and territories from 1789 to 2025. Involving over 4,200 scholars and other country experts, V-Dem measures over 600 different attributes of democracy. Read it here.
Ted-Ed have released a short lesson by Michael Vazquez, directed by Avi Ofer. ‘Could lotteries replace elections?’ explores sortition as an alternative to elections.