PART-Y Participation and Youth: Lab for Equal Cities

Background We have chosen to promote the involvement of young people in civic life by supporting their right to the city and to public spaces, as fundamental places of meeting and democracy. Young people are among the first users of public spaces but few of these spaces are designed with this group of citizens in mind. In particular, girls are among the most excluded, and especially from the age of middle school they tend to be increasingly less present and active in public places that appear to be mostly suited to boys’ tastes and habits, limiting girls’ right to the city. This situation is accompanied by the need for innovation in the activities offered to girls and boys by youth sector organizations and youth centres which in some cases present situations of stagnation and lack of new ideas in the construction of programmes of activities. We wanted to address this issue by providing young citizens and youth workers with new tools for involvement and activation, and for the construction of public places that are the real pulsating centers of their communities. Objectives - Strengthen youth involvement in European democratic life by promoting the right to the city and to public spaces with a perspective to social inclusion and "generation equality", introduced by the United Nations agency UN Women (https:// www.unwomen.org/en/getinvolved/beijing-plus-25) to promote equal opportunities starting from the youngest, focusing the attention of girls, boys and educators on the common spaces of the city as fundamental places of meeting and democracy, providing the tools to better understand their potential and to intervene on them. - Improve the innovation capacity in the activities proposed to young people and the internationalization of youth organizations in the countries participating in the project, offering opportunities to acquire skills on innovative participatory planning methodologies, experience an international context of experts and associations with great experience in this sector and broaden their national and international network of potential partners and collaborators, and making available work tools that can support their activities well beyond the conclusion of the project. Implementation The project was structured in cycles of Staff Training, Local training Activities and the development of replicable and adaptable Intellectual Outputs. In the Staff Trainings approaches and methodologies such as Placemaking, Gender Equal Cities, Design Thinking were shared among partners and experts, and these meeting and exchanges provided the basis for a series of Local Training Activities, which took place in two youth centers in Trieste (IT) and Koper (SI). What had been learned was developed to be used by the participants so that the key concepts were transmitted effectively and allowed girls and boys, with the guidance of educators, to analyze and reinvent public spaces tailored to young citizens, producing maps, prototypes and new visions for those spaces. This work laid the basis to develop new flexible methodologies, summarized in two intellectual outputs, a TOOLKIT to build a Communication Campaign for a Young and Inclusive Placemaking, and a METHODOLOGY of Placemaking by Gender Sensitive Design Thinking, with dissemination of innovative approaches and practical suggestions. The project and outputs were disseminated through a series of Multiplier Events hosted by the partners and other European level events. Achievements - TOOLKIT to build a Communication Campaign for a Young and Inclusive Placemaking. The toolkit proposes a simple and accessible path to build a communication campaign and is aimed at two targets: young citizens who want to revitalize an urban space and want to involve their peers or other stakeholders in this process; municipalities and other organizations that want to involve young people in co-design processes for public spaces. The toolkit is also available in a second version for people with visual and reading disabilities/impairments. - METHODOLOGY of Placemaking by Gender Sensitive Design Thinking. A handbook, a toolbox and a video tutorial guide young people in the process of analysis and co-design of a public space in a participatory and inclusive way. These tools were obtained through project activities from which girls and boys and educators directly benefited and have strategic value as tools that are easy to use and useful for the work of other actors in the youth sector. These tools will also be available on the EPALE, SALTO, E.N.T.E.R platforms and in the online libraries of the URBACT Knowledge Hub and the Placemaking Europe network.