ABSTRACT
22 This manual is a tool to help you to design and implement projects that involve young people as partners in the community development process. Ultimately, its goal is to improve the quality of young people's lives as well as the quality of the places where they live.
Achieving this goal will require commitment, energy, patience and resilience. In the end, as well as along the way, it will be a rewarding journey with valuable results.
This chapter outlines the essential ideas on which the manual is based, and the factors that help to make cities good places — or not such good places — for young people. These first steps, which culminate with an evaluation of your own city as a place for young people (at the end of this chapter), will help to establish a framework for what lies ahead.
