A Partnership with and for youth for creating 'A Path for Everyone' (En Vej til Alle).

47,000 young people are outside of employment and education. This has been the case for decades despite numerous reforms. It’s not the young people’s problem – it’s a societal issue that can only be addressed collaboratively with the youth, across the public sector, civil society, and the business community.

This is the background for the partnership ‘A Path for Everyone,’ of which SUS is a co-founder.

The partnership, with and for the youth, aims to pave new and overlooked paths to education, employment, and communities, with the experiences and knowledge of young people at its core.

‘A Path for Everyone’ was established in 2022 to inspire the Danish Reform Commission with new solutions and to propose what society can do for the approximately 42,000 young people currently without jobs and education.

Decades of reforms in this area have been based on assumptions about what it takes to get young people into jobs and education. But it hasn’t worked.

Thousands of young people never realize their potential and slowly become disconnected from society. This has significant consequences, both for the individual youth and for our society.

The partnership believes that young people themselves should have a much stronger voice to show the way to long-term solutions.

SUS has organized two storytelling camps for young people in connection with the establishment of the partnership.

The first step in the partnership was a submission to the Reform Commission with innovative solutions that can create new paths for the over 47,000 young people currently without jobs and education.

In the partnership’s view, the problem is so complex that it cannot be solved by the public system alone. Different solutions are needed, and the systems around young people must do things in new ways to create the desired changes. This involves not only the state, municipalities, and regions but also the business community and efforts in civil society.

Therefore, the partnership, in collaboration with young people and professionals from a wide range of initiatives, explores the effective strategies used by the public sector, civil society, and the business community: When does it succeed in addressing young people’s needs and unleashing their potential? And when is cross-sector collaboration fruitful?

In May 2022, ‘A Path for Everyone’ submitted the proposal to the Reform Commission after, in collaboration with young people and professionals from a wide range of initiatives, investigating the effective strategies used by both the public sector and civil society: When does it succeed to address young people’s needs and unleash their potential? And when is cross-sector collaboration fruitful? What are the lived experiences of the young people at the center of it all?

A Path for Everyone has now entered another phase, where the partnership aims to show the way on how to create changes based on the recommendations of the Reform Commission.

We have gathered leading practitioners in a learning community to identify effective elements and existing challenges. And we have formed a broad coalition for change, consisting of over 30 diverse organizations from civil society, the business community, and the public sector. Across sectors and in close collaboration with young people, we aim to contribute to solving the complex societal problem that decades of reforms have not been able to address.

The goal in this phase is to establish a series of ambitious development platforms to advance this work. With the coalition, we will leverage our diversity to influence the debate, build on existing strengths, connect actors to develop and test new solutions where answers are unknown, and, most importantly, push for necessary changes in framework conditions, organization, structures, and legislation.

A Path for Everyone has established a cross-organizational development secretariat that ties everything together. SUS is part of the secretariat.