Since its beginnings, Biennale Democrazia have given special attention to young people. Teenagers and university students are indeed a relevant slice of the audience that joins the events and, during the preceding months, the training organised by the Biennale Democrazia dedicated staff.

In the last two editions the number of young participants has increased: in 2013, we counted 1,500 tickets booked by high school students, while other 2,025 by those who attended college. In 2015 we saw a greater participation: the presence of teenager students doubled with 3,646 tickets and others 2,224 had been booked by university students.

As told earlier, Biennale Democrazia works to get them involved before the days when it takes place through specific training organised by a staff of trainers, who work for Biennale Democrazia. They develop different educational paths based on the edition’s theme and addressed to high schools in Turin and in Italy. The latters indeed can benefit from the online version that can be downloaded and managed directly by teachers. In preparation for Biennale Democrazia 2015, for instance, we organised 5 training paths, 85 workshops that took place in 20 Turin high schools involving more than 11,000 students.

Some weeks ago, we started the training related to the next edition: 106 classes enrolled in our training. This year we created four paths: Debtors and creditors, Migrations and integrations, Environmental emergency and human responsibility, Facing wars and terrorism.

Moreover, during the last edition of Biennale Democrazia, from 25th to 29th March 2015, other 170 students come to Turin from other four Italian towns – Verbania, Ciampino, Castelfranco Veneto e Treviso –  and lived in the campus created for them. The campus aims to foster the participation by classes that come from other Italian regions.

In 2017 as well, helped also by Acmos, an Italian organization who works to promote community activism, we are going to organise a new campus for students that will come to the city during the event.

According to our view, students and young people are essential for Biennale Democrazia and in these years they have played an active role too as they are used to propose and realise some of the panels. As usual, in 2017, the Council of students of the University of Turin will organise 7 initiatives which will be part of our programme.

So, why not join Biennale Democrazia if you attend a high school or a university somewhere else in Europe or in the world? Biennale Democrazia is available to help foreign classes or groups of students who would like to come to Turin during our next edition from 29th March to 2nd April 2017 to find an accommodation and take part in our next edition. Don’t forget that, as usual, the events will be particularly rich in international panelists and as a new feature of Biennale Democrazia 2017 we are going to have several panels only with English speakers.