How do the young see their future? What do they dream about? What concerns them? Switzerland’s young people can answer these questions themselves, when they have a political voice.
What do young people want in a large, highly urbanised Swiss city? In Zurich, for example, they want open gyms, greenery on building sites, concessions for cultural and leisure events, meals and public transport. They have real prospects of seeing these dreams come true. Last autumn, Zurich city parliament approved a total of seven procedural requests by young people. The ball is now with the city council: it must decide by autumn 2026 exactly how to give the youth what they want.
Procedural requests from the young are a political instrument launched by the city of Zurich with its 2022 pilot project “Euses Züri – Kinder und Jugendliche reden mit!”, which translates as “Our Zurich – children and youth have their say”. It aims to provide young people with an opportunity to contribute their ideas for society in the political arena. About 90 people aged between 12 and 18 meet at youth conferences and cooperate with members of the city parliament in working out the details of their procedural requests. They then present their arguments in parliament.
Ricarda Barman is one such person. The 15-year-old secondary school pupil attended last year’s youth conference and she will tell politicians why property owners must receive assistance with the installation of solar panels. “Oil and gas are more urgently needed elsewhere. As they are not renewable, they need to be used sparingly,” she told “Swiss Review”. Barman approves of young people participating in politics. “Giving us young people in Zurich a voice is a real step forward. Most politicians are much older than we are and won’t have to live with the consequences of today’s decisions for as long as we will.”
The young people in the city of Thun also have a voice. Teenagers (aged 13 to 18) have been able to bring requests to the city parliament since 2014, provided they are backed by 40 signatures from the same age group.
The Zurich youth have the support of Julia Kneubühler. She is responsible for the youth conferences for the city of Zurich on behalf of the Association of Swiss Youth Parliaments (ASYP). The ASYP promotes political participation at all three levels of government – communal, cantonal and national. The digital platform www.engage.ch, developed by the ASYP some ten years ago, is a valuable tool in gauging the needs of young people. Besides the city of Zurich, the canton of Solothurn also uses it, for example to organise a “Jugendpolittag”, a forum where young people can make themselves heard. “Red mit!” (“Join the discussion!”) is the name of the campaign, which is being held for the 18th time in 2025. What outcomes has it brought? There was, for example, a procedural request from 2023 that was supported by all the political parties last year in the cantonal parliament: a school identity card valid throughout the canton allowing pupils discounts.
Young people and young adults have also had a voice at a national level for nine years; they have already brought thousands of requests to the Federal Palace. The ideas of 12-to-25-year-olds are gathered every spring on the www.engage.ch platform under the motto “Verändere die Schweiz!” (“Change Switzerland!”). Young members of the Swiss parliament across the entire political spectrum then choose one idea each they would like to act on. At least 100 ideas have been formulated to date with their authors. Granted, they may not have brought groundbreaking change to Swiss politics, but the ASYP is still satisfied. “The fact that young people are playing an active role in the political process is already a success. If ideas turn into specific political requests, so much the better. We know how hard it is for the members of parliament themselves to achieve something tangible in the long-drawn-out and complex process of Swiss politics,” says Fiona Maran, team head of campaigns for engage.ch at the ASYP. As a positive example, she mentions the motion submitted in the summer of 2022 by National Councillor Lukas Reimann (SVP), proposing that the Federal Council promote language study trips for pupils in Switzerland in all four national languages. The Federal Council rejected the motion; however, the National Council approved it in the spring of 2024. The next step is the Council of States, so the motion may still lead somewhere. Another topic of interest to the young is early recognition of the risk of reduced retirement pensions due to gaps caused by social insurance contributions not having been paid every year. The problem often arises at the start of working life. FDP National Councillor Andri Silberschmidt has raised the issue in parliament, and the Federal Council has taken a position on it.
Anyone who gives the young a voice is showing them that their opinion counts, and by doing so is helping with prevention. Hannah Locher from UNICEF Switzerland and Liechtenstein, the child welfare organisation of the United Nations, is certain of this. Studies show that many children and young people in Switzerland are struggling. According to a survey by UNICEF Switzerland and Liechtenstein in 2021, 37 per cent of 14-to-19-year-olds experience moderately severe or severe symptoms of anxiety disorder and/or depression. “The figures are alarming,” says Locher, also with a nod to the Stress Study by Swiss foundation Pro Juventute, which ran from the end of 2019 to early 2020 and involved over 1,000 pupils. It shows that a third of children and young people in Switzerland are under considerable stress, feel tired and exhausted and are under pressure to perform.
The 15-year-old secondary school pupil Irem Dönmez also wants to address pressure to perform. She will present a procedural request from the youth in Zurich on the topic of mental health to the city parliament. It’s a topic that lies close to her heart, after she found the transfer from the second to the third class of secondary school “very stressful”. “We had to attend many apprenticeship trial days until we found an apprenticeship in August, manage the regular schoolwork and sit a daily exam for two weeks at the end.” It’s understandable that their nerves become frayed in these situations, she says, all the more so if they have their own issues to deal with. Young people want more understanding from teachers about this emotional burden; they need room and tangible opportunities to address their feelings and issues at secondary school. “People shouldn’t just think about school during this challenging time,” says Dönmez. Her procedural request thus calls for a credit from the city to finance prevention programmes, thereby strengthening mental health at secondary school.
“Zukunftsrat U24” (“Council of the future U24”) sees mental health as the main issue for young people in Switzerland. The topic was rated urgent in a nationwide representative survey. The “Zukunftsrat” is supported by the Swiss Society for the Common Good (SSCG). This is a council of citizens aged from 16 to 24 who live in Switzerland. The 80 members are selected from 20,000 eligible persons through a multi-stage drawing of lots. The composition of the council should reflect the Swiss people as closely as possible and thus also includes foreign nationals who are disenfranchised in Switzerland. Arya Kaya, a 24-year-old Kurd, joined the conference in 2023 and is enthusiastic about it: “I had fled from Türkiye to Switzerland, I was alone, without a social network. And then I, a foreigner, was given the chance to have my say.” Over 30 proposals were discussed at three weekend workshops and finally 18 recommendations formulated for Swiss political action. The creation of a legal basis was requested, allowing the Confederation to act in a coordinated way at a national level with regard to the mental health of young people, including monitoring and a focus on prevention.
The demands of the “Zukunftsrat” mirror those of UNICEF to a large extent. Hannah Locher believes that the problem is not solely a lack of experts, but mainly structural deficits: there hasn’t been enough work on promoting the training of child and adolescent psychiatrists, provision does not take adequate account of requirements and prevention is seriously underfinanced. Locher praises the “many engaged, low threshold offers for example from schools, sports associations, youth work or the psychological support in communities”. However, the cantonal differences vary greatly, she argues. Locher says: “It’s a hotchpotch. We need a national strategy to provide support where it is needed throughout the country.” UNICEF funds a programme where towns can earn the label “child friendly”. Although not specifically related to mental health, accessible public living space for children does help with prevention.
The question remains as to whether youth participation can make a difference with this burning issue for the young. There is no doubt in Arya Kaya’s mind. Many interested politicians attended the closing conference of “Zukunftsrat U24”, and she has since received several personal invitations to symposiums. For example, she spoke at a big event in front of 600 experts. “We haven’t worked for nothing,” she emphasised. Today, she sees herself as a game-changer, in so far as she disseminates the recommendations for action by the “Zukunftsrat” in her network, which is perceptibly growing. The young woman now speaks excellent German, and has joined forces with 29 other motivated “Zukunftsrat” members to form “Zentrum Zukunftsrat U24” (“Centre for council of the future U24”) and started studying psychology at the University of Zurich.
At the same time, not all young people in Switzerland have the interest or even the strength to involve themselves in politics. They need easily accessed offers from the young for the young. An example of that is the ZETA Movement made up of people who have suffered with their mental health. Its current ambassadors define their aim as follows: “According to our vision, Generation Z should be the last generation to suffer from stigmatisation, silence and discrimination regarding their mental health, but the first generation to act as a catalyst for change and prompt a paradigm shift in people’s approach to the issue.”
UNICEF names the following as risk factors for psychological problems among children and young people: poverty, families affected by addiction or violence, emotional neglect in childhood and bad childhood experiences (school bullying, for example). Investments in preventing mental illness are in the interests of society as a whole, including economically. The London School of Economics estimates the losses from mental impairments and disabilities leading to the inability to work or death of young people at almost USD 58 billion per year in Europe. So, mental health is not just an issue for young people in Switzerland – and it didn’t start with the Covid pandemic, as might have been thought from the surveys (see main text). “The pandemic was a possible driver but the problem predates it,” says Hannah Locher from UNICEF Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Covid accentuated it and made it visible, she says.
(DLA)
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Hinzufügend möcht ich darauf hinweisen, dass es nicht wundert, dass ein solch politisch erzieherisches Projekt ausgerechnet in der Schweiz seine Geburtsstunde feiert, weil gerade der mit dem Projekt manifestierte Individualismus in direktem Zusammenhang mit der direkten Demokratie steht.
Ein hochinteressanter Artikel - und ein hochrelevantes Projekt, ein Thema, weit über die Schweiz hinaus! Die Jugend an der Ideengestaltung der direkten Demokratie praktizierenderweise teilhaben zu lassen, ist erzieherisch sehr begrüssenswert - und das ganz sicher nicht nur für die heranreifende Jugend, sondern ebenso auch für die eingefleischten Altpolitiker mit oft gravierender Impotenz in Sache ideellen Frischzellen.
Machen Sie Witze? “An der Urne Entscheide fällen”? Welche Entscheide denn? Ja/Nein? Demokratie heisst "Volksherrschaft" und kommt aus dem Griechischen aus einer Zeit, als dort 80% der Bevölkerung Sklaven waren, und die "Demokratie" nur für die 20% Besitzenden (Männer) bestimmt war. Fast wie bei uns heute. Oder wollen Sie bestreiten, dass nur Kapitalbesitzer wirkliche Entscheide treffen können? Einer der nichts hat als seine Arbeitskraft, die er an Kapitalbesitzer zeitweise vermieten muss, um zu leben. Der hat auf jeden Fall nichts zu entscheiden, was für ihn relevant ist. Bei der "direkten" Demokratie ist die Täuschung sogar noch raffinierter als bei uns in Deutschland, wo sich immer mehr Menschen von diesem Polittheater angwidert abwenden.
Werter Herr Paul Jud, ich habe so das Gefühl, dass in Ihrem geschrieben inhaltlich eine definierbare, nachvollziehbare Kundgebung fehlt, weil Sie bei Ihrer Wortwahl die Sinngebung der Worte falsch interpretieren. Demokratie, welche es auch sein mag, ist in ihrem Endeffekt ein Mehrheitsentschluss von JA oder NEIN zu einer Vorlage. Dem vorangehend ist Sache der Meinungsbildung. In einer ultimativen, direkten Demokratie, wie die der Schweiz - wie sie selbst die Ur-Demokraten im alten Griechenland nicht kannten - ist eine Einflussnahme von sektoralen Thema verfremdenden privat Interessen weitgehend blockiert. Ist doch ganz im Sinne der Zivilisationswerte. So, Herr Jud, WAS ist daran nicht vorbildlich gut?