Stéphane Garcia and Valentina Holecz (Co-President of “Et Pk Pas”) look back on the success of the consultation that brought together nearly 14,000 Swiss citizens to rethink the civic Service.
Et Pk Pas? is a Geneva-based association recognized as serving the public interest, which aims at strengthening young people’s democratic participation. To do so, we organize events led by young people for young people (aged 18–25) each time there are referendum. Four times a year, we host 50 events across the canton, meaning 200 per year. We are also currently working on the creation of a House of Democracy in Geneva dedicated to young people, which will open in autumn 2026.
We felt extremely satisfied and even proud. Initially, we were aiming for between 6,000 and 8,000 participants. Reaching double that number was an unexpected result. At the Swiss level, this represents a strong achievement and showed that this pilot project met certain expectations.
The debate largely reflected what we had already heard during the campaign for or against the “Civic Service” initiative, on which the Swiss people voted on November 30, 2025. It is a highly controversial topic, and this is clearly reflected in both the proposals and the responses. Overall, the consultation served as an online extension of the public debate taking place at the same time.
We certainly hope so. In any case, the results show that the debate remains open and therefore needs to continue. Regarding civil service — a relatively recent achievement (1996), which is now being challenged by increasingly restrictive measures — the debate will necessarily continue, as a referendum has been launched against these restrictions. The consultation showed that 67% of young people want to make access to civil service easier and strengthen its usefulness. We hope political actors have taken note of this key result.
“Gen Z” has spoken! There is a significant tension between the notion of compulsory service and the aspiration for meaningful engagement based on free choice. That is the real heart of the debate. It will be important for the voice of these young people to be heard at the political level, to ensure that service — a noble concept in a society increasingly shaped by individualism — is not perceived as a mere chore and stripped of its meaning.
We are a local actor in Switzerland, where federalism makes it difficult to operate at the national level. In this consultation, 14,000 people expressed themselves in the three main national languages. One of our objectives was to demonstrate that online consultation is a valuable complementary tool for encouraging youth participation in public debate. While we may not have the capacity, as an association, to position ourselves as a national actor, this pilot experience enabled us to establish numerous contacts with other associations across Switzerland. A valuable asset to continue energizing democratic debate in the future.
We had the pleasure of working with a highly professional team and discovering the performance of their tool. Both the quantitative and qualitative results convinced us of the relevance of this approach. In the context of a semi-direct democracy, where public debate is essential in shaping opinions, the tool offered by Make.org makes perfect sense to engage young people in democratic life.