How can young people be involved and influence provincial policy? This question was raised in 2025 during the celebration of 650 years of the province of Utrecht. During the anniversary year, efforts were made to structurally give the voice of young residents a place within the decision-making of the province of Utrecht. From this year onwards, young people will have a platform: a pilot with a new youth platform for both solicited and unsolicited advice.
The youth platform will become an independent advisory body for the provincial government: Provincial States and Executive States. With solicited and unsolicited advice, young people provide their viewpoints on provincial issues and thereby represent the youth in the province. For the province of Utrecht, this is a next step in strengthening the involvement of young residents. Moreover, the youth platform connects to a long tradition of participation established 650 years ago in the Stichtse Landbrief (1375).
Participation with youth
In 2025, the project ‘Young Utrecht Takes Action’ started. Provincial administrators and politicians engaged with educational institutions about themes such as housing, mobility, climate, and nature. Afterwards, several meetings were held at the House for the Province to consider how best to involve young people in the province. The pilot with the youth platform concretely implements this.
Deputy for Participation Has Bakker: “The Young Utrecht Takes Action project has shown that young people aged 16 to 27 want to be involved. Our search then was: how can we organize that? Fortunately, the participants also had ideas about that. The youth platform was one of those plans. Once the platform is established, they can feed us with surprising perspectives and hold up a mirror to us.”
Project with impact
The youth platform receives support from the province but decides for itself when and about what it advises and what it wants to participate in. Space for own initiative, critical reflection, and independence is therefore very important. Deputy Bakker: “We are precisely looking for the blind spots that young people can point out to us. That way, young people also think along about their future in Utrecht.”
Youth council gets to work
At this moment, fourteen young people between 18 and 27 years have signed up for the pilot. They became involved with the province last year. Participant Estelle Geurts (21): “I believe that the voice of young people, the voice of the future, must have a permanent place in politics. Through Young Utrecht Takes Action, I ended up a year ago in the hall of Provincial States. That motivated me even more to let the voice of young people be heard loudly and clearly.”
In the coming weeks, the young people will further organize the platform and divide various tasks. In May 2026, the participants will present themselves, the platform, and their first assignment.
For press information:
jiri.glaap@provincie-utrecht.nl
06 39 63 21 97