The idea to start the project URBEX came from a common challenge faced by the project partners: the low participation and community engagement of the young residents living in disadvantaged urban areas. The project URBEX aims to to facilitate the participation of young people at risk of social exclusion by exploiting the partners’ experiences in the field of participatory urban exploration, share good practices and create and test innovative exercises and tools in five European urban contexts. To achieve these general objectives: - we will improve the observatory and exploratory skills of professionals working with youth at risk within the context of strong cooperation and networking between five EU organisations; - we will propose and test solutions to make the analysis of urban contexts more attractive to young people living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods through the use of innovative exploration and gamification tools. The two main targets identified by the project partners are: 1) 50 young people (16-24 years old) living in the neighbourhoods where the project partners are working (at least 10 for each local context); 2) 25 youth workers/educators of the partner organisations and other professionals interested in the use of urban exploration as educational tool (at least 5 for each partner) The project partners are organisations from five different EU cities: Palermo (IT), Albacete (ES), Ljubljana (SL), London (UK) and Berlin (DE). Each partner organisation works in a specific neighbourhood and will directly involve in the project implementation other youth organisations, the local departments of the Municipalities and the local community. Through the collaboration of active organisations in different national contexts, the project aims at framing the specific issues experienced at local level within a broader transnational perspective in order to: - capture and take into consideration different urban contexts - take advantage of the local established networks - broaden the scope of the actions. The main activities foreseen for URBEX are: - five collection of good practices in participatory urban exploration implemented at local level to be shared within the partnership; - two transnational meetings to define the project strategy and support the cooperation among the partners; - one shared educational toolkit on participatory urban exploration; - two learning mobilities (a short-term joint staff event and a blended mobility for youth) to train 25 youth workers and 50 youth at risk on the exercises and tools included in the educational toolkit; - one pilot test of the exercises and tools in the five urban contexts. The main results envisaged are: - to mobilise and foster active citizenship and community engagement among 50 young people at risk of social exclusion in five EU urban contexts; - to provide training, skill-building and tools to 25 professionals working with young people at risk of social exclusion in disadvantaged urban contexts - to design new exercises and tools to improve the engagement of youth at risk of social exclusion in urban development; The main Impact envisaged is: - to give 50 young people, from 5 different EU cities, the opportunity to be aware of the resources and processes taking place in their own neighbourhoods and to use such resources to participate and become active actors in urban transformation; - to acquire new skills for 25 youth worker with youth at risk of social exclusion (in particular, from the development and test of the participatory urban exploration toolkit and from the Learning Activity C1); - to contribute to create an effective network of organisations working on partecipative methodologies and community development with youth at risk of social exclusion.
project “URBEX: Urban Exploration as Educational Tool” facilitated the participation and community engagement of 50 young participants and group leaders by exploiting the partners’ experiences in the field of participatory urban exploration, sharing good practices and testing innovative exercises and tools in the cities of the partner organisations. The project partners are organisations from five different EU cities: Palermo (IT), Albacete (ES), Ljubljana (SL), London (UK) and Berlin (DE). Each partner organisation works in a specific neighbourhood and had directly involved in the project implementation other youth organisations, local high-schools and the local community. URBEX directly involved: - 25 youth workers/educators as participants of the training and leaders of the local labs; - 45 young people (16-24 years old) and 5 young group leaders, most of them living in the neighbourhoods where the project partners are working and 5 adult accompanying persons. To achieve the project objectives the partners started by creating an educational toolkit including a list of good practices on urban exploration and a selection of tools and exercises developed by the partners. The toolkit also includes a step by step method on how to realise a youth urban exploration project. After the definition of the toolkit and of the learning programme the partners trained 25 youth workers and educators, most of them working with youth at risk of social exclusion, during the short-term joint staff training realised in January 2019. The training improved the observatory and exploratory skills of the participants and have been an opportunity to learn and test the educational tools and exercises included in the toolkit. After the realisation of the first mobility the participants have been involved as group leaders and trainers in the Blended Mobility with the participation of 45 youth at risk of social exclusion. The Blended Mobility foreseen the realisation of local labs (from February to July) to prepare the young participants before and after the physical mobility and to introduce them to the topic of urban exploration. After the first round of local labs, in April 2019, the young participants with the group leaders and the accompanying persons joined a 7 days youth mobility in Palermo. During the meeting the young participants explored together the neighbourhood Capo-Monte di Pietà of Palermo and actively joined an educational programme designed to their needs and skills. After the physical mobility the Blended Mobility continued with the realisation of other local labs inspired to what have been learned in Palermo. The main result obtained by URBEX has been the increasing participation and attention to the community showed by the young participants of the Blended Mobility. Thanks to the innovative educational activities realised during the local labs and the physical mobility in Palermo the young participants learned how to observe their local environments, how to collect data and how to use them to reflect on new proposals and ideas to solve some of the local issues identified. These results have been exploited by the disadvantaged background of most of the young participants for whom it was probably the most engaging learning experience realised so far. The project has also been a successful learning opportunity for the youth workers/educators involved in the training and in the local labs. They have acquired specific knowledge and developed skills on the use of the urban exploration in the youth field and explored together with an international team the possibilities offered for their work with youth at risk of social exclusion. During the local labs and the Blended Mobility they had the opportunity to test most of the exercises learned in the training and to develop new ones according to the needs of their target group of youth. They also directly contributed to the definition of the toolkit by including the exercises realised during the labs and promoted it to their colleagues and local youth organisations. Beside the impact on the participants (both youth workers and youth) the realisation of URBEX had an impact also on the associated partners involved, especially other local youth organisations and high schools. Thanks to their participation in the project activities they had the opportunity to become part of an international network of organisations working on partecipative methodologies and community development with youth at risk of social exclusion.