Citizenship Knows No Age: Children’s Participation in the Governance and Municipal Budget of Barra Mansa, Brazil

This paper describes the development of a children’s participatory budget council (CPBC) in the city of Barra Mansa, Brazil. 18 boys and 18 girls are elected by their peers to ensure that the municipal council addresses their needs and priorities. This council determines how a proportion of the municipal budget equivalent to around USD $125,000 a year is spent on addressing children’s priorities, and its child councilors are also involved in other aspects of government. The elected children learn how to represent their peers within democratic structures, to prioritise based on available resources, and then to develop projects within the complex and often slow political and bureaucratic process of city governance.

The CPBC is based on a participatory electoral approach, organised by the project co-ordinators and facilitators. Children and teenagers participate in neighbourhood assemblies, where they engage in debate and elect their neighbourhood delegates. These delegates participate in district assemblies and elect district delegates. There follows a municipal assembly, where the district delegates elect the 18 girls and 18 boys who become the 36 child councilors.

The goals and objectives of the CPBC are:

• to encourage children and teenagers to play an active citizenship role, in order to enhance both their personal development and their sense of belonging to their communities;
• to help create a new model of leadership for participation and democracy;
• to value the contributions that young citizens can make to urban management and governance;
• to set up a children's council to determine the use of a portion of the municipal budget for public works and services, based on the opinions of children and teenagers who participate in the neighbourhood assemblies; and
• to promote, through the establishment of the children’s councils, civic engagement of children and teenagers through a democratic and participatory process, which involves discussion, election and defining problems and priorities.