The Austrian Press & Information Service and the Bertelsmann Foundation are proud to present a screening of the short documentary Rising Voices. The film explores how young people in Vienna, Austria participate in local politics. How do children and young people in Vienna learn about and experience democracy? How does the city learn about what young people want? Rising Voices features innovative initiatives like the Participatory Children and Youth Million and the Children and Youth Parliament, and hears from a variety of perspectives from the vice mayor and city council members, to teachers and students. 

The documentary screening will be followed by a panel discussion entitled Generation Vote: Shaping Democracy Through Youth Participation with Kirsten Eddy from Pew Research Center and Tarsi Dunlop from the German Marshall Fund of the United States moderated by Anthony Silberbeld from the Bertelsmann Foundation. The event will conclude with a wine reception.

The film was created by Washington, DC-based Bertelsmann Foundation and German Marshall Fund in cooperation with WIENXTRA and the City of Vienna. It is part of a six-part documentary series featuring democratic innovations in cities on both sides of the Atlantic. The other cities highlighted in this project include Oklahoma City (Oklahoma), Athens (Greece), Minneapolis (Minnesota), Barcelona (Spain), and Lexington (Kentucky).