Civic activism is taking on new forms in Europe and globally, especially in terms of how young people commit to different causes and civic participation. An increasing part of youth participation takes the form of one-off engagement, for example, through signing online petitions, or through self-organisatory activities that bring people together for a one-time specific event. Although new forms of civic activism can in themselves be valuable and should be encouraged, they often lack long term goals and strategies that can have a transformative societal impact, especially when it comes to big and complex global issues such as global trade and consumption. They also risk leaving behind many marginalised and vulnerable groups of youth, who do not have the resources to take part self-organisatory activities or quickly changing social media campaigning. This project will focus on involving young people in transformative civic participation towards a common goal of making global trade fair for all. Young people across Europe are connected through the global brands and consumer goods that they use every day, such as food, clothing and electronics. Youth are also bombarded by diverse commercial messages on social media, on the street, on TV, in movies and in games. Many young people are interested in changing global production to make it sustainable for all people. Yet the complex global supply chains make it very difficult to see how they could influence the working conditions and environmental issues on the other side of the world. The first objective of the project is to strengthen the capacity of the organisations involved to allow them to engage youth in an inclusive manner in an era of new activism. All partners have tools that have been successfully used to engage youth towards common societal goals and we want to find out how combining these can engage youth in a way that is empowering and fitting to the new era of activism, without leaving marginalised groups behind. The methods will be shared between partners and improved by the participation and co-design of the activities by the youth themselves as well as the engagement of external mentors who are experts on new forms of activism. The lessons learned will also be shared with other youth organisations on a national level. In addition to learning from each other, the project will also engage external mentors (eg. people involved in self-organisatory activities such as Restaurant Day in Finland or social media activists) as well as involve young people themselves throughout the project. We believe the outcome will be a very powerful method to enhance youth civic engagement. The second objective of the project is to increase the capabilities of young people to a) critically evaluate the commercial messages they are confronted with and to decipher the production chain of their everyday consumer goods and to b) be empowered to influence the way global production takes place in the world today, both through policy reform and through influencing companies directly. In the project, a group of 24 young people aged about 18-25 from three different EU countries (Finland, Estonia and Latvia, eight people from each country) will be chosen to commit to the process of strengthening their own civic participation skills while at the same time co-designing the project workshops and thus contributing to developing new methods for youth organisations to engage young people in transformative action. To ensure inclusive participation of youth, half of the participating youth chosen will have a background in a marginalised community. During the transnational meetings the youth, together with the youth workers, will also plan their own national activities that will take place in between meetings where they can put into practice the skills they have acquired. The results will be shared with national youth organisations in workshops and seminars as well as on the web pages of the partner organisations. By supporting youth organisations to empower youth the project will enhance civic participation by youth, including marginalised youth, especially on global issues.
The project was formed in the context of civic activism taking on new forms, especially in terms of how young people commit to different causes and participate in civic action. Youth participation is increasingly one-off activism, for example, through signing online petitions, or self-organisatory activities. The project focused on involving young people in transformative civic participation around fair global trade - a topic that is shared among young people across Europe through global brands and consumer goods and commercial messages. The first objective of the project was to strengthen the capacity of the organisations involved to allow them to engage youth in an inclusive manner in an era of new activism. The second objective of the project was to increase the capabilities of young people to a) critically evaluate the commercial messages they are confronted with and to decipher the production chain of their everyday consumer goods and b) to be empowered to influence the way global production takes place in the world today, both through policy reform and through influencing companies directly. In the project, a group of 24 young people aged 18-25 from Finland, Estonia and Latvia were chosen to learn civic participation skills and co-design the transnational meetings that were the key activity in the project. Three transnational meetings were planned and organised together with the youth. The youth experienced hands-on activities and learnt from external speakers on themes related to responsible consumption and fair global trade. In between national meetings, the partner organisations supported initiatives and activities planned and implemented by the youth to put into practice the skills they had acquired.