ACT as a DOUGHNUT

ACT as a Doughnut aimed to engage, connect, and empower youngsters to be active citizens and co-create “their “thriving city. We developed educational materials and trained youth workers who trained local associated teachers in the domain of social science/citizenship. Their students created a city portrait and used the power of imagination to imagine what their thriving city would look like. Second, based on education materials, they advised active citizens of their city on the best next steps.

Our primary target groups are youth workers, students aged 15- 19 years, and their teachers. Our secondary target groups are city representatives and Associated Partners. All youngsters deserve a quality education and ACT to create their future. We knew by experience and are backed by reports that we faced gaps in all five countries.

Our main objective is to boost youngsters’ positive and active participation to create a sustainable future in their local community based on shared (EU) values.
We developed Non-Formal Educational materials to;

• be used by youngsters on social cohesion AND environmental challenges; they run projects and realize their inclusive democratic participation;
• support teachers on new key competencies, create a new curriculum and co-create transnational insights

Result 1 “Engage, connect and Empower” handbook; a ready-to-use and scalable handbook/ with Non-Formal educational materials in 6 languages. (Dutch, English, German, Polish, Romanian, Slovakian,
Result 2: An online “train the trainer” course is being offered; youth workers and teachers are trained. The course is scalable and available online in six languages.
Result 3  “ACT as a Doughnut community projects”; ca 60 students per country (in total 300) implemented (split in 5 teams) projects in their communities and chose out of the five categories of the Doughnut theory (so per country 5, in total 25 projects);

1. a) “Empowered” (focusing on the topics of Peace & Justice, Social equity, Political Voice, and Equality in Diversity);
2. b) “Connected” (focusing on the topics of connectivity, community, mobility, and culture);
3. c) “Enabled” (focusing on the topics jobs, income, education, and energy)
4. d) “Healthy” (focusing on the topics of health, housing, water, and food)
5. e) “Local-ecological”- (the environmental dimension)
6. 
   

Moreover, feedback from participants showed a great impact in quantity and quality:

– The projects guided by youth workers and teachers involved ca. 300 students
– The 5 multiplier events hosted 150 stakeholders to foster the ecosystem needed for transformation
– Education proved to play a responsible role as a driver of transformation in their cities.
– Youth workers grew in impact as they grew their skills and quality formats for social innovation
– Teachers gained didactic and personal skills and learned how to use a broader education portfolio relevant to a digital era
– Students were engaged and empowered as they ran innovative projects and embraced the co-creator role of blended formats.

Our follow-up strategy, as described below in this report, resulted in unique scalability potential as we shared this on a global level with NGO’s in 40+ countries via the MP NL network and the partners in their regional and national networks.

We express our gratitude to our local funders and EU as the main co-funder for enabling and facilitating these scalable results.