MYSTIC – “Mobilising Youth and Youth Service Talent through Immersive Co-design” – is a tale of two tribes – youth organisations and disadvantaged youth. The first has been eviscerated by decades of funding cuts. It no longer has the skills, the know-how, the capacity or the innovation to keep pace with the increasingly complex issues and challenges faced by the second. Both tribes seldom meet. They stay in their own bubbles. They don’t really know what each other thinks. The first tribe finds the second tribe too challenging. The second tribe doesn’t trust the first. This situation is taking place against a backdrop of intractable and increasingly pressing ‘wicked problems’ that threaten the whole European project, epitomised by unsustainable economic systems, an existential environmental crisis, post-pandemic recovery challenges, increasing inequalities, a growing disenchantment with European institutions and values and increasing pressures on borders driven by unstable geopolitics, as evidenced by the current situation in Ukraine. Young people are not immune to these wicked problems. In fact – and this is particularly the case for those with fewer opportunities – young people have been more adversely affected by them and, more importantly, it is their future that is most at stake. These problems can only be solved with a contribution from young people. But those with fewer opportunities face formidable barriers to getting their voices heard. They need help from youth organisations.

What would happen if we created spaces for the two tribes to come together, explore each others thinking, work together to help create solutions to the wicked problems?

This is what MYSTIC does. It sees the need for two new roles to burst the bubbles. One role is for Community Mediators – youth workers and volunteers, trained in the skills needed to collaborate better with young people with fewer opportunities. One role is for Community Leaders – young people from left behind communities who have the potential and desire to become role models for their peers. MYSTIC provides an online development and training programme. Its purpose is to ‘prep’ youth workers and young people with fewer opportunities for these roles. Then it sets up two spaces in which the two tribes can come together. First in a training hub that provides an environment for the tribes to work together to reinforce their online learning through practical activities. Then later, Community Labs in which the two tribes come together to solve the wicked problems.

Partners:

Co-ordinator: Associação Godinhela, Portugal

Arcola Research, UK

Spherical Pixel, Spain

Kethea, Greece

One Terrene International (OTI), Cyprus

Centrul Pentru Promovarea Invatarii Permanente Timisoara Asociatia (CPIP), Romania

Tiber Umbria Comett Education Programme (Tucep), Italy

Fundacao Adfp – Assistencia, Desenvolvimento E Formacao

Profissional (Fundação ADFP), Portugal

This project has been financed under the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission, Key Action 3, project No. 101089601