Vlaams jeugd- en kinderrechtenbeleidsplan 2015-2019 | Page 5

p r e f ac e

As Minister for Youth I want to make sure, through this plan, that
each Minister actually carries out his or her intentions.
I have also made important resolutions within the framework
of my own competences. For instance, I advocate the provision of
good support to children and young people in the digital society.
Cyberbullying, privacy and screen addiction are terms we encounter
sometimes when talking about the dangers of social media and the
Internet. In a variety of areas we want to teach young people how
to use digital technologies and t heir applications responsibly, safely
and respectfully in their dealings with others.
Furthermore, I also consider the participation of all children
and young people in social life important. We live in a diverse
society which will become even more richly diverse in the future.
However, it seems that this diversity is not so easily embedded in
our traditional youth associations. In the coming years, I want to
devote particular attention to the participation in youth work,
culture and policy of difficult-to-reach young people.
The process for drawing up the Flemish Youth and Children’s
Rights Policy Plan 2015 — 2019 completed several stages and adopted
a participatory approach.
Working groups composed of young people, youth workers,
children’s rights actors, civil society, civil servants and researchers
worked together intensively for several months around nine selected
themes to arrive at strategic and operational objectives on the basis
of priority policy challenges. These themes were poverty, ecology,
being young, mobility, education, participation, space, well-being
and housing. We also added the themes ‘employment’ and ‘youth
culture’.
Sven Gatz
Flemish Minister for Culture, Media, Youth and Brussels Affairs

5