"Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."
Robert Frost
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By Alf S. Johansen, IC project manager
Working with Youths for Sustainable Structural Changes and Innovation
Young and creative people is a marginal resource and should be the key target group for all smaller places and even for shrinking cities with a will to stimulate innovation and to make structural changes. With a constant decrease of young women the places will shrink or even die for sure.It’s a quite common misunderstanding that bringing youths into a development project makes the project a “youth project”. I have never been a youth worker and I will never become one. When professionals within the field of territorial planning and politics are working with youths it’s not because of charity or that we don’t have other things to do but simply because it’s very important for creating sustainable communities.
Many young people were brought into the projects PIPE and Innovation Circle which aimed at making structural changes and innovation from three reasons;
First of all we wanted to get the ideas and opinions possessed by young people into the public and professional debate simply because these opinions come from a key target demographic group. It’s a standard strategically planning methodology in democratic countries. It’s even taken into the national planning law guidelines in Norway but in practice it’s still not so commonly used. And methodology is not so well elaborated.
Secondly we wanted to demonstrate that youths also could be involved in changing processes and could work together with professionals and decision makers in a constructive way given an appropriate framework which could facilitate such a combination. This was an interesting methodological challenge. Different approaches were tried and tested with various results. One approach was to do this within a school framework with the teacher as a facilitator and guide. Other variants tested out was through NGO’s, within “community generator groups” and finally through specially organised events with external experts as facilitators. The last variant gave the best results as the project management could conduct the events directly. Also other alternatives worked quite well some places. Other places it really failed. In general we can say that schools in Scandinavia managed to some extent to organise this if there was a qualified and dedicated teacher in charge. In the other countries most schools were not capable of organising such processes from various reasons. “Red tape” and lack of qualified teachers were the main reasons. Business Angel in Alytus, Basen in Kirkenes and Rokis in Suwalki are examples of NGO / institutions which with success organised IC youth groups.
Many young people were brought into the projects PIPE and Innovation Circle which aimed at making structural changes and innovation from three reasons;
First of all we wanted to get the ideas and opinions possessed by young people into the public and professional debate simply because these opinions come from a key target demographic group. It’s a standard strategically planning methodology in democratic countries. It’s even taken into the national planning law guidelines in Norway but in practice it’s still not so commonly used. And methodology is not so well elaborated.
Secondly we wanted to demonstrate that youths also could be involved in changing processes and could work together with professionals and decision makers in a constructive way given an appropriate framework which could facilitate such a combination. This was an interesting methodological challenge. Different approaches were tried and tested with various results. One approach was to do this within a school framework with the teacher as a facilitator and guide. Other variants tested out was through NGO’s, within “community generator groups” and finally through specially organised events with external experts as facilitators. The last variant gave the best results as the project management could conduct the events directly. Also other alternatives worked quite well some places. Other places it really failed. In general we can say that schools in Scandinavia managed to some extent to organise this if there was a qualified and dedicated teacher in charge. In the other countries most schools were not capable of organising such processes from various reasons. “Red tape” and lack of qualified teachers were the main reasons. Business Angel in Alytus, Basen in Kirkenes and Rokis in Suwalki are examples of NGO / institutions which with success organised IC youth groups.
Thirdly we wanted to give the next generation a “flying start” in public matters and business creation. Deliberately we wanted to focus both on young entrepreneurship and community development issues as there is a link between structural changes and innovation. The training given to youths within this field was constructed in such ways that they should comprehend the link between community and business. There was a clear goal to strengthen their knowledge, skills and attitudes and enhance awareness about local challenges and possibilities and become ambassadors for their home cities and communities.
During the two projects the youths could talk and reflect about the local and global challenges with guidance from experts and in dialogue with decision makers and visitors from abroad. They were also encouraged to bring on new ideas and suggestions and finally they were invited to take part in implementation and dissemination actions. The vision “Murmansk 2016-Capital of the Arctic” became a result from the IC project. Working with this vision we launched a process for structural changes. We highlighted the gaps between the current reality and the vision of a bright shining city within a globally attractive region. For some young people and for some officials the focus on this gap was embarrassing or it even came as a shock. Facing the reality is the first step in a changing process. And it’s very often the hardest step.
Putting up future workshops in Alytus, Suwalki, Pskov, Murmansk, Spydeberg, Askim, Turi, Kirkenes, Tranemo, Druskininkai and other places we wanted to influence changes and to encourage young people to fight for their home towns and to make sustainable innovations. We see that many of the ideas and proposals coming from our projects step by step are discussed seriously and taken into structural plans and budgets and even implemented. Of course we experienced some difficulties. Some youths were not enough mentally prepared and some leaders didn’t facilitate good enough or didn't require follow up results. However, most of the youths did an good job. The results and outputs were excellent at the places where we had proper involvement from the local authorities and where we had students and teachers from universities and colleges to work with. “Alytus 2020” is one good example of that. The results from working with younger pupils are more simple, but even there the results are significant, especially from the perspective of involvement and learning. We experienced that some people in the beginning didn’t quiet understand the difference between our projects and traditional youth projects. They probably thought that we were going to entertain youths and make happenings just for the fun. This has been a problem, in particular in the PIPE project and to a certain extent also in the IC project. Some project partners even appointed project workers who were more focused on the events than the structural changes. Some decision makers obviously didn’t see the point in meeting with youths and joining common events and work groups where youths were involved. So called “soft projects” are regarded negatively especially in the new EU member states and Russia. As our projects didn’t bring much money for hard investments they were not regarded as valuable among some decision makers. We clearly see that the “new east” has another way of regarding young people and democratic processes in general. Some politicians still talk like it’s a waist of time to communicate with citizens in general and young people in particular. And they act like it’s a waist of time to invest in human capital, in processes which will take some more time before they bring hard results. These politicians are not a part of the new governance or sustainable solutions. They are a part of the problem, a part of the past. We can still find "soviet style" government many places in the Eastern Europe at national, regional and local level and now and then even in the west. The communist party may have been substituted with other bodies, but the conduct is pretty far from the set of values and governance we expect to find in real democracies. These kind of leaders and their management culture will be replaced. If the governance will not be more transparent, inclusive and democratic, then I predict that the Eastern Europe will never become competitive with the west and the populations will shrink. Escpecially the smaller places will continue to shrink and accumulate disadvantages. However, the overall picture is that most people who have been involved in our projects, even the local councils, see the benefit from working with the next generation. They see that students of architecture, art, design, tourism, business management, social science, politics, economy, law etc... and even younger pupils, can contribute significantly to the development of their home communities. The IC project created 53 local/transnational innovations. We already see that we can add 1-2 new innovations at that list every month, emerging as results from the IC project or the IC network. In fact we are planning to do that. We will update new innovations coming up and we will invite these to be put on display at our annual events. The youth council in Robertsfors, the Band Map in Notodden are two examples. We also know that work is going on to realise the youths innovation centres both in Østfold and in Cesis. All these examples are excellent innovations initiated by youths or established with participation from youths. |
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