Young Consumers. The basic rights. - Observatory of Public Sector Innovation

The organization has first piloted and then fully implemented a school educational program on consumer protection, "Young Consumers. The basic rights". The program aims at a proactive approach and early building of awareness on sustainable consumption and consumer rights, include those rights' ecosystem of protection and the milieu within which they are exercised. This innovation reaches out to its target-group and capitalizes on the benefits of physical presence as well as the students' own experiences in a context of authentic learning.

Innovation Summary

Innovation Overview

The organization's educational program for schools "Young Consumers. The basic rights", an unmediated intervention at the everyday learning environment, was developed as a knowledge-intensive innovation to answer the need of youth's awareness on responsible consumption and consumer protection.
The program makes use of the authority's experience on consumer disputes and complaint management in a rapidly changing consumption environment, particularly useful during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. On the other hand, uses the team's skills in authentic learning processes (collaborative construction of knowledge, dialogue, real-life educational scenarios).
The aim is to make students aware of their role as consumers within the context of national, European and world citizenship in order to increase their confidence in themselves, making them realize they are not powerless. The goal is that they can see themselves as young heroes of the change towards responsible consumption.
The target-group, aged 10-18, learns the basic consumer rights based on EU law (warranties, cancellation, alternative dispute resolution, timely delivery, reliable information, protection of the underaged from products threatening their mental health, etc), the competent authorities for each sector of consumer protection, and the fundamental principles of sustainable development based on the UN's 17 goals.
Our mission has been achieved beyond the organization's expectations, mainly because of the target-group's strong response and active participation in the project, to the point that creators use the feedback to periodically update the content based on students' interests and knowledge demand.
Our vision is to gradually expand our team to accommodate schools across the country.

Innovation Description

What Makes Your Project Innovative?

The project is considered innovative because it reaches out to young people in an unmediated way, directly addressing students by way of the public authority's physical presence in schools. This approach makes use of an experiential learning approach to actively engage students in relevant, real-world learning transcending discipline boundaries.

What is the current status of your innovation?

Following the in-house development stage that utilized the authority's data on consumer protection and the total of relevant literature, there was a short pilot period and then the project was (and still is) being fully implemented in schools.

Innovation Development

Users, Stakeholders & Beneficiaries

The project is developed in cooperation with the Greek Ministry of Education, which approves the contents.
Moreover, the students' feedback is crucial for the approach of the educational program, allowing the team to update the content according to needs, demand, interest and real-world cases offered by the target-group.
Citizens benefitting are not only students participating in the project, but also their families, which can bring the benefit of multiplying its effects.

Innovation Reflections

Results, Outcomes & Impacts

The project increases the youth's awareness on consumer protection and responsible consumption with multiplying effects for families.
The metrics in use are the number of students participating in the project, their feedback as target-group after each intervention, and the school management's feedback (oral and written comments, letters of appreciation).
2,340 students have participated in the program since 2019 (Covid-19 pandemic was a dead period) and our vision is to gradually expand the project across the country.

Challenges and Failures

The main challenges for the project are (i) understaffing and (ii) the lack of the skills among staff needed to address students. Since the project is designed and implemented in-house, it is crucial to work with our HR services, in order to utilize the organization's staff with a teaching background.

Conditions for Success

The success of the project builds on the context offered by the Ministry of Education, the utilization of human and knowledge capital, as well as the team spirit.
Common values of team members play a crucial role, since it is an in-house project offered to schools free of charge, thus self-motivation and engagement with the cause of responsible consumption were tantamount.
Schools significantly and essentially supply the project by capturing the need it responds to.

Replication

The innovation has hitherto not been replicated.
Following the period of its full implementation and assessment, the experience and know-how may be utilized by other organizations with a scope of social value.

Lessons Learned

Knowledge-intensive public sector projects with a social scope need to address target-groups according to their particular traits or profile in order to raise awareness in a way that focuses on the group's own experiences and concerns.

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