Young people advise the Nordic Council of Ministers

“I’d say that we’ve helped children to understand things better,” says Amalie when asked about her and the other children’s involvement in producing new material providing information on the Nordic Council of Ministers aimed at children and young people. The Nordic Council of Ministers aspires to see the Nordic Region as the best place in the world to be a child and a young person, and it pursues policies for children and young people to play their part. That’s why the Nordic Council of Ministers entered into a collaboration with the 5th grade students Billie, Amalie, Alfred, Emma and Minna from the Molsskolen school in Djursland.

The material is based on explanatory text and illustrations. One of the first things the young people pointed out was “difficult words”. The children could see that adults wouldn’t find them as difficult, but they and their peers would struggle. For that reason, a number of complex words were weeded out, and those words and definitions that remained were thoroughly explained. Every effort has been made to find illustrations that could support the text and create good visual explanations of the organisation and processes, which may seem a bit too intricate in the children’s eyes.      

The Nordic Council of Ministers has also offered the employees training in the importance of working with children and young people in relevant areas, and how it can be done in practice.
“Our co-operation with children is a concrete example of the Nordic Council of Ministers taking the lead and complying with the policy that Nordic ministers would like to see more of,” says Alexandra Ronkina, Senior Advisor at the Nordic Council of Ministers. And if we ask the young people from Molsskolen, it was certainly not a bad idea to have them on board:  
“I don’t want to brag, but I’m really good at something like this. At least it wouldn’t have been as good if Minna, Alfred, Emma, Amalie and I hadn’t joined,” says Billie.