Minecrafting resilient Cities: innovative YOUth-led Policy process for sustainable Europe
On the 21st-22nd of March, the MC-YOU partners met, face-to-face, for the first time in Faro, Portugal in a two-day meeting, connected to the Cities Peer Exchange seminar and hosted by the Municipality of Faro.
The meeting marked an important milestone, closing the analysis phase of the project with the introduction of the “Minecraft as a Youthful Policy tool” publication in the Peer Exchange seminar, as well as the launch of the development phase of the project, with the kick-off for the co-design process of the “Resilient Cities Toolkit”, a training resource for stakeholders, policymakers and young people on the use of Minecraft in building sustainable and resilient cities. The meeting was also followed by a study visit to Faro’s MIMOMO initiative in the form of an interactive “walk-and-talk” session with the architect and teacher behind Faro’s successful undertaking that saw local students redesigning local modernist architectural monuments using Minecraft as the medium.
Active engagement of youth in sustainable development efforts is central to achieving sustainable, inclusive and stable societies by 2030 (UN, OECD). The partners have identified 2 main challenges to be addressed by the MC-YOU: the Urgent Need for Resilient Cities and the Lack of Innovative
Participatory Model Attractive for young people. MC-YOU project aims to empower young people to take a proactive role in creating resilient cities by developing and testing a new youth-led policy model that includes leveraging the creative and educational potential of Minecraft but also offering policymakers a sustainable solution to engage youth in political processes on the local level.
Specific objectives are (1) To support the development of digital skills among young people; (2) To encourage the involvement of a diverse group of young people; (3) To create and test innovative policy mechanisms for young people to collaborate and participate with policymakers; (4) To create and develop a Community of Practitioners; (5) To create a Capacity Building platform for future for city administrators.
The project‘s activities will encompass several cycles including #Analyse&Commit! (WP1), #Educate&Empower! (WP2), #Consult&Develop! (WP3), #Advocate&Sustain! (WP4), #Manage&Impact! (WP5).
Results will showcase the increased capacities of the target groups (young people, youth stakeholders and policymakers) to effectively engage young people in all phases of active political participation.
Impact: The project activities will reach 405 young people, 243 youth stakeholders, 252 policymakers and 360 citizens and reach 13040 people online. The project will also amplify its scope and include other external stakeholders to attain medium and long-term sustainability.
The project will be jointly implemented by 8 partners: Network partners OTB (Belgium), UBC (Poland), Piloting cities (Faro, Riga, Sandanski), Youth stakeholder partners YEPP (Germany/Europe), CESIE (Italy) and quality assurance partner LINK (Italy).
The project will be funded by the Erasmus+ program and will last 24 months.