The CONTINUE project will be presenting not one but two Conversation of Change events during the first quarter of 2022. Find out all of the details – and how to register – right here.

Young People in a Post-COVID World / Friday 4th February 2022 / 3:30pm to 6pm / Gorse Hill Studios

Join us for a conversation on how the pandemic has affected young people in Greater Manchester and what can be done to address these issues.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a difficult time for everyone, in particular marginalised young people who have seen their world turned upside down and have struggled to stay connected and integrated. Over the past few months, People’s Voice Media and Gorse Hill Studios have been working together as part of CONTINUE to gather the stories of young people from Greater Manchester who have lived through these unprecedented times.

The young people have co-led the story gathering and curation workshops and are now ready to share their findings with members of the local community at this Coversation of Change event. The event will be co-facilitated by the young people themselves and People’s Voice Media, with an aim to use their stories as stimuli for a dialogue about what civic action can be taken locally to address issues and ideas identified in them. 

It will take place at Gorse Hill Studios on Friday 4th February, 3:30pm until 6pm and is aimed at young people, local community leaders, members of the community and those who work in local government, health and social care, education sectors and beyond.

At the moment, the event is planned as an in-person event, with all COVID-safe measures in place. However, should any restrictions in place at the time make it unlikely/impossible that the event be held in-person, we will move to an online space.

Connecting Youth Through Storytelling / Thursday 24th March 2022 / 1pm to 3.30pm / Zoom

Join us for an online Conversation of Change event that will create a pan-European dialogue on the experience of youth during the pandemic.

Over the past few months, a pan-European consortium of NGOs have been working together on the CONTINUE project to gather the stories of young people from the UK, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Denmark, Lithuania and Portugal who have lived through the unprecedented times of the COVID-19 pandemic

The young people have co-led the story gathering and curation workshops and are now ready to share their findings with members of the European community at this online Coversation of Change event. The event will be facilitated by Hayley Trowbridge from People’s Voice Media and aims to open up a conversation between young people and decision-makers from across Europe about how COVID-19 has impacted the lives of young people, what is different across the nations and what are the commonalities?

The Conversation of Change event will take place on Zoom on Thursday 24th March, 1pm – 3.30pm GMT / 2pm – 4.30pm CET, and is aimed at young people, community leaders, members of the various European communities, those who work in European, national and local government, health and social care, education sectors, NGOs and beyond.

About the CONTINUE Project

Connecting European Youth through Storytelling

CONTINUE will support young people suffering from social exclusion to tackle the specific challenges of post-COVID times in terms of staying connected and integrated into European communities.

CONTINUE will directly involve young people with migrant and other marginal backgrounds in the project activities in order to enhance the interaction between individuals, their communities and the pan-European levels. .

CONTINUE will be realised by a Consortium of 8 NGOs working with marginal youth groups, experienced in youth education, community-based activities, policy recommendations, working with an extended network of organisations from different sectors.

Co-Engage (an Erasmus+ project) was a cross sectoral project addressing the intersection of the key competence of Lifelong Learning through its methodology and partnership. By exploring the diversity of approaches of co-creation such as entrepreneurship-building, active citizenship, environmental quality, social inclusion, digital literacy, local policies, formal and non-formal education etc.

One of our key deliverables for the project was an e-book of co-creation best practices from across Europe but, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we decided as a consortium to produce two e-books, with one focussing on co-creation practices that emerged from lockdowns across the continent.

The e-book’s are now available to download using the below links.

Citizens as Co-Designer: Practices on how to engage citizens in community building

COVID Responses: Citizens as actors in a global crisis

At the end of August the Co-Engage project will come to an end and last week saw out its final meeting, hosted by our Polish partners in Warsaw. It was a somewhat sad end to the project for PVM as we were unable to travel for one last in-person meet-up and, instead, had to settle for dialling in on Zoom.

As we move towards the final reporting stage, we also look forward to the publication of the project’s e-book, which we will link to on this blog as soon as it’s available.

The final Co-Engage lab took place in Toulouse at the end of July. Unfortunately, due to coronavirus travel restrictions, Sarah and Georgia from PVM had to attend online, but that didn’t stop it being an enjoyable few days.

The lab focused on the topic of condominiums, with participants working with case studies and co-design practices to solve problems for fictional residents and owners. Hosted in an actual condominium complex by our French partners, we had the opportunity to see an example of such a residential development, as well as meet stakeholders.

As online participants, it was great that our hosts had thought about a way to include us more fully in proceedings as well, giving us specific tasks and a proper roll in the lab, enabling us to have a great time and produce something of value.

With Co-Engage coming to an end later this month, we’ll be able to share the project’s e-book and results with you soon.

At the end of June, the Co-Engage project held the second in its series of training labs to test the co-creation practices it has researched from across Europe.

The lab, organised by School Raising was hosted in Bologna, Italy and focused on applying our learnings so far to co-create a crowdfunding campaign designed to engage citizens in assisting a local school with a project to improve its facilities and educational offering. Unfortunately, due to ongoing COVID travel restrictions, PVM had to attend online, but it was good to see that many of the partners were able to attend in-person – hopefully we’ll be able to join them soon.

The work in the labs included deciding on a project to crowdfund for, brainstorming pledges and settling on the amount we would charge for each one (think The Price is Right!). We also discussed how we could publicise the campaign, settled on a name and shared contacts we could use to help us gain support, before presenting our ideas to each other and finalising the campaign.

Although managing a hybrid training lab with a mix of online and offline participants was certainly a challenge, the School Raising team and the rest of the partners who were attending in person did everything they could to ensure online attendees were able to engage with discussions. We even got a quick tour of the venue at one point!

The next lab is in Toulouse later this month – one we will also be attending online – but, hopefully, come August we’ll be able to meet our Co-Engage partners in-person for the first time in 17 months.