Youth Bicycle Mayor Movement

The Youth Bicycle Mayor’s role is to offer a teenager’s perspective and imagination to the realm of cycling activation, with the goal of making cities fit for all ages. They work alongside the senior Bicycle Mayor of their city to create tangible impact. Currently, there are 5 Youth Bicycle Mayors, who represent cities in the Netherlands, India, and Ireland.

The idea for the Youth Bicycle Mayor originated as part of the election campaign of Amsterdam’s Bicycle Mayor, Katelijne Boerma, who focused on making cycling safe for all children. She helped find students in local schools to lead cycling progress. These students were involved in design competitions and co-creation workshops to develop new solutions for cycling access, leading to the selection of one student as the Youth Bicycle Mayor.

With support from the Urban Movement Innovation Fund (UMI), the Global Youth Bicycle Mayor Movement (previously Junior Bicycle Mayor Network) aims to empower and harness the perspective of young people in cities. 15 young cycling leaders will be elected in cities across the world to work with current Bicycle Mayors, promoting more inclusive mobility cultures.

In order to achieve this, we are supporting Bicycle Mayors to run their own campaign to find the next young leader in their city. This includes planning meetings, goal setting, outreach strategies, graphics and other resources for the course of 2-3 months.

Teenagers are more socially and environmentally conscious than ever, and are mobilising around the world. We want to leverage this energy to co-create more resilient, inclusive, and healthy cities.

Our solution is building a social movement around cycling with and for youth, where teens, 14-18, are elected as Youth Bicycle Mayors to support the work that Bicycle Mayors are doing in their cities. 

They build leadership skills, and give a fresh and inclusive perspective, promoting youth involvement on a wider scale.

Aparna Prabhakar, Youth Bicycle Mayor of Trivandrum created a Bicycle Brigade in her school comprised of passionate cyclists aged 11 to 17 where they organized group rides and awareness campaigns. Aparna was also helped set up a bike-to-school route to allow her peers to commute to school in a fun and safe way.

Amsterdam Youth Bicycle Mayor, Lucas Boer is part of a coalition of organisations called Green Deal Fiets, striving for better cycling funding and policy for all in the city. His role is to ensure the views and needs of young people are met, as well as helping to carry out some of the proposed projects.

Europe

Lucas Boer – Amsterdam, Netherlands
Aya Achaboun – Den Haag, Netherlands
Aoife Kelly – Dublin, Ireland
Cecilia Porto Martínez – Madrid, Spain
Brooke Barker – Manchester, United Kingdom

Asia

Bhavyank Lalit Gugalia – Valsad, India
Aparna Prabhakar – Trivandrum, India
Malav Dutta – Guwahati, India

Contact for more information:
james@bycs.org