Workshops

Study visits and workshops will cover a wide range of aspects of participatory youth work. You can find short descriptions of some of the workshop organisers and presenters below. Registration for the workshops and study visits is closed. Information has been sent to registered participants.

Cross-sectoral co-operation, EU and youth proactivity (theme for Wednesday)

Navigating through the cross-sectoral youth policy process: conversation and ideas for practice. Etch Kalala-Mabuluki, Ecole des hautes études en santé publique (EHESP), Rennes, France

In Etch Kalala-Mabuluki’s workshop about cross-sectoral youth work, you will hear the latest news from youth research, along with an address from two other researchers, Mirja Määttä and Frederike Hofmann-van de Poll. After the overview, participants will have a group discussion and a chance to share their own examples and positive cooperation experiences with different actors in youth work, common problems and specific issues related to their working context.

The Debattle Project. Ellen De Grauwe, Belgium

Debattle was an Erasmus project (action key3) that activated youth councils for local elections. In Flanders, all municipalities and cities must have a youth council by law, with the mission of ensuring that the voices of children and young people are heard within the local youth policy. Debattle informed young people about politics, developed new tools and methods to organise participation (survey the dreams and opinions of young people) with the goal of influencing the agenda of the politicians. We developed different missions so that youth councils could choose what they would use to succeed in their mission. The project started a year before the elections and ended with the aim of having more then 150 debates with young people and politicians to discuss future policy and in particular youth policy for their municipality and city.

Helsinki Youth Council / Helsinki Youth Services (includes a visit to Helsinki City Museum)

Helsinki Youth Council is a statutory youth participation channel as specified in the Finnish Local Government Act. It is an annually elected group of thirty young people aged 13–17 from Helsinki. Their task is to ensure that the voice of young people is heard in decision-making and in the planning, implementation and monitoring of the operations of the various divisions in Helsinki. The Youth Council is part of the Ruuti influencing system in Helsinki. Check out this video about Helsinki Youth Council.

Youth Council of Helsinki will hold an interactive hour about youth participation. During the hour Youth Council members will challenge the participants and their actions towards young people’s decision making opportunities. The hour is filled with presentation about Youth Council, Question Box –where participants have an opportunity to ask anonymously anything from the youth and use their expertise in participating youth in their cities. The hour will end with the Wheel of Fortune: The youth will put the adults to test: How well did they listen to the youth during the hour?

BuddySchool. An instructional peer learning approach, Helsinki

BuddySchool is based on a peer learning process, in which younger pupils are taught by older ones. The approach promotes interaction through shared activities. Peer learning helps strengthen a range of skills among pupils, such as reading, writing and interaction. In addition to this, peer learning strengthens pupils’ levels of activity, readiness to take responsibility, and self-esteem. The approach also improves the school atmosphere in a new, happy and community-based way. Improved comfort at school, in turn, has a positive impact on pupils’ learning outcomes and provides a better readiness for upper secondary education and working life. This allows the BuddySchool approach to also help prevent the social exclusion of young people.

Operation Pulse!, Helsinki Youth and Culture Service (WEDNESDAY: together with a visit to Kannelmäki Library and Youth Center, THURSDAY: visit to Luuppi)

Operation pulse! was created through cross-sectoral collaboration in 2009. Operaatio Pulssi! provides young people with opportunities to try out different hobbies and events free of charge, as well as to brainstorm, plan and implement them together with professionals. Operaatio Pulssi! is organised by the City of Helsinki, with local schools and youth work providers, culture and sports operators, libraries, parishes, adult education centres and local associations and clubs also involved.

Participatory Budgeting Project, Andras Farkas, Romania (Com’on Europe and PONT Group)

This project focuses on participatory budgeting and the network of European Youth Capitals that are running the project.

Varia – a workshop on special youth work in Varia and upper secondary schools in Vantaa (combined with a visit to Oranssi youth organisation)

This workshop will focus on the benefits of youth work in different educational environments, and it will include a participatory discussion on the topic and future prospects of youth work in educational institutions. The workshop will include an introduction to Oranssi cultural youth organisation.

NGO’s and local youth work, environmental proactivity and city culture development by young people (theme for Thursday)

City Incubator, Public Institute Young Dragons, Ksenja Perko, Slovenia

Ksenja Perko The challenge the City of Ljubljana wanted to address was how to approach young people who have ideas. We tackled the challenge with positive inquiry: what works well, and what could be even better? We approached young people with a thoughtfully designed program that supports them on their path to making their ideas a reality. We developed the City Incubator as a sustainable tool for knowledge support, implementation tools and co-financing for local youth initiatives. The innovation addresses young people who have their own ideas on how to improve the quality of life in the city, and who wish to be actively involved in the life of the city. City Incubator is a platform for the implementation of the ideas of young people in Ljubljana. City Incubator makes young people’s ideas a reality and represents the implementation of one of the measures to increase the support for young peoples’ initiatives, as featured in the Strategy of City of Ljubljana for Youth 2016–2025. It was developed and first put into practice in 2016 by Public Institute Young Dragons in co-operation with the NGO TiPovej! We want to showcase a successful project to inspire and pass on an idea that works and can be applied to different environments of social development through supporting young people. We want to show a positive example of collaboration between youth organisations, municipalities and business, making people’s lives in the city better and having a positive impact on the city.

Habitat Festival

How to transform young people to festival organisers. Bram Canniere, Belgium

The co-operative path to the annual Habitat-festival in Leuven.

Influencing the night. Bram Canniere, Belgium

How our plan for the night in Leuven (Nachtplan) is developed and run by young people.

Place-making with young people, Niko Riepponen and Ville Leino, Espoo, Finland

In this workshop you will learn how to easily involve young people in co-design projects that will shape their surroundings cost-effectively and at the same time build a stronger community. Participation designer Niko Riepponen has almost ten years of experience co-designing better city with residents of all ages. Planner Ville Leino is a participation expert and equality enthusiast who has an over 10 year experience of different participation projects with young people.

Cities of Learning, Nerijus Krauciniunas and Brigita Ruziene, Lithuania

Our need for professional and personal growth transcended the walls of classrooms and lecture rooms a long time ago. So, how do we learn today? We learn at a computer screen, we learn outside, we learn from each other, we learn by ourselves, we learn in groups, we learn by doing and we learn by reading about those who have done it before us. What if we turn the entire city into a learning site? The platform for Cities of Learning is designed to help you do just that. Digital solutions like geolocation, personalised learning pathways and digital badges allow NGOs and municipalities to offer young people across territories a systematic and sustainable way of learning.

Participatory youth work and today’s updates and futures scenarios in youth work and the conference outlines (theme for Friday) Circus Magenta

Sirkus Magenta – social circus

The speakers highlight Magenta’s work with different target groups that need support in their lives. They concentrate on projects done in co-operation with youth municipalities (LBGTQ+ youth, disabled, refugees).

Dream City – FEMMA

Dream city is a participatory social dreaming workshop about our ideal society and urban environment. In this workshop we dream about life in utopian cities and explore what kind of common elements can be found between our utopias, as well as creating tools to achieve our visions through writing, dialogue and sharing.

Veil Project performance demo, Cirko – Center for New Circus

Demo performance from Cirko residence artists.

Environmental Education in youth work: Case Youth’s Eco Café, Youth Environmental Space (workshop and study visit)

Youth Eco Café. Maarit Hohteri, Helsingin kaupunki. The Youth Eco Café was born from youth’s participatory budgeting (RuutiBudjetti), a model that promotes youth’s influence in Helsinki. This workshop is an introduction to a new concept in environmental youth work. Young people learning about sustainability and ecological/ethical choices through cooking, organising workshops and short term/temporary employment in ecocafe events.

The activities are led by the Environmental Education Youth Work Unit, which educates, employs and trains young people. At the Youth Eco Café, young people get to decide what kind of products they want to sell and bake. The Eco Café favors domestic, fair trade and organic products which are vegetarian or vegan.

Omnia – multisector education provider and regional development centre

Omnia Youth workshops are intended for young people (aged 17 to 28) in the Espoo region who are unemployed or not engaged in a course of study. The activities are work try-outs and rehabilitative work activities. There are 11 on-going workshops (e.g. transportation, food service, textiles, audio and video workshops) and various other rehabilitative and counselling services for our focus group.