Eighteen years, four continents and one constant: participation is only real when those who take part hold the same decision-making power as those who convene. I facilitate summits, train trainers and mentor youth delegations to move from having a say to deciding.
Open Space, Art of Hosting, Deep Democracy and structured dialogue so rooms of 30 to 300 think and decide together.
Non-formal education and experiential learning (Kolb, level II). Curriculum and competence-pathway design for educators and agencies.
Mentoring high-impact youth groups: from idea to a mechanism that actually changes something — advocacy, campaigning, governance.
Gamification, edu-larp and educational board games. I make a hard concept (power, participation, climate) understood by playing it.
The core finding isn't that youth are apathetic: they participate differently (58% in CSOs, 35% in protests, 38% posting opinions online). The problem is the gap between how they participate and who decides — and tokenism: they're invited, but «only to speak on youth issues» (p.28).
Its practical recommendation, the one I bring to every workshop: build an enabling environment, not just «fix» young people — real access to decision-makers, funding for ongoing processes (not just short projects), the local level first, and that those with power also learn to share it.
EU–CoE Compendium →We built the competence framework (CORE / TECHNICAL / INNOV-ACTION on the KSAV model: knowledge, skills, attitudes, values), researched the circular labour market and surveyed 200 young people (18–30). Their biggest barrier wasn't laziness: lack of information (62%).
The piece: «The same waste, 296 jobs» →