Youths' Creative Solutions for Placemaking for Encounters at Children's Playgrounds

The pandemic highlighted a renewed need to access to new open spaces, parks/playgrounds for children and facilities which are not always equipped and able to accommodate various and increasing nee...

- TO CULTIVATE A NEW GENERATION OF YOUNG PROFESSIONALS in the fields of architecture, urban development, design and cultural project management and related disciplines who can foster youth-led dialogue in their communities and become active citizens. Place for Play aimed to: - raise the youths' awareness of the importance of human and social considerations required for place-making in human-centred design, - increase their culture of research, - open their minds to interdisciplinary cooperation, - impart informal and non-formal skills and - foster their engagement within communities. - TO FOSTER PROXIMITY BETWEEN THE YOUTH SECTOR AND HE through non formal training paths and engagement of learners from different disciplines in informal learning settings so that education goes beyond the acquisition of formal qualifications, cultivates creative transfer among different disciplines and different levels in education and up the professional status and social position of youth organisations by augmenting their training and service offer, their relevance in the youth’s future as professionals and as engaged citizens. - TO GENERATING NEW SPACES FOR CULTURAL OPERATORS in children's playgrounds through augmented use for social cohesion.

The project process engaged more than 27 youth leaders/educators and 92 youths/students in: 1. Local activities in Norway, France, Italy, Malta, Turkey and Belgium in local activities during which they engaged with local policy makers and with their respective communities to propose ideas for better living environments that are inclusive and human centred. In these local activities a local group of youths and educators "adopted" one or more local play areas and created a real case study to interact with the community in order to implement a field test of the knowledge gained in the 4 rounds of training and in their formal education. Community consultation was undertaken on the basis of opportunities for improvement and new ideas for the specific play area to be repurposed and improved. Propositions for redesign were made in some of the local activities. Stakeholders and interest groups, local cultural, educational and other operators who could make use of the revisited and redeveloped play areas were involved in the consultation. The aim was to rethink these play areas and public spaces to become a place for people to meet and converge. 2. 4 rounds of training in Malta, Brussels, Antalya and Rome where they received input on community consultation process, placemaking and human centred urban development and tools to facilitate consultations with the public about urban development and the use of digital tools for cooperation and development of demonstrative tools to present and share value propositions. The 4 rounds of mobilities were made up of 7 parts each time using the context for experimentation and cross border exchange: i. mentoring of local activities in progress by experts after sharing experience of their respective activities in progress in their country, ii. practical workshops on starting up, implementing and concluding a real and effective community consultation, iii. didactic sessions on placemaking, people-centred and inclusive urban development, iv. support and joint decision-making by young people to produce their results, including the use of social media and other useful technologies to facilitate the organisation of virtual and face-to-face public consultations, v. looking at examples of good practice and vi. meeting with local stakeholders who may be close to the host partner's local activities. 3. Research activities by all participants in the local project activities that were brought together into one joint publication that features the work of all participants and brought forward an informal document on value propositions for more children (and human) centred urban spaces. 4. 5 transnational meetings in Putignano, Malta, Brussels, Antalya and Rome. The project also had a management (system and meetings) and quality monitoring process (and validation) and a dissemination process to help share outputs and benefits with the largest possible community around it. 5. There were also 8 Multiplier Events where social players attended to join the dialogue about the two main areas of the project human centred urban development and community consultation.

Place for Play produced two main outputs: - R1 Creative solutions for redesigning children's play areas: This outcome consists of a collaborative youth-centred process leading to peer learning activities and close involvement of local communities and stakeholders to redesign and repurpose public spaces, namely children's playgrounds, into a dynamic and inclusive space for education, cultural engagement and active citizenship. The structure of the pathway contained multiple aspects related to non-formal and informal education with a strong link to the formal education of youths career path. This process enabled the target groups to acquire new skills and interdisciplinary competences encompassing all aspects related to the effective co-creation of new initiatives for the benefit of children, young people and the wider community involved. The target group included: - young people pursuing careers in architecture, design, urban development, information technology, education, social cohesion, inclusion and culture management: the variety of sectors and levels of education of the target group facilitated interdisciplinary collaboration between young people. - youth organisations operating in local communities, including social actors representing social needs and in particular groups most vulnerable to exclusion and disadvantaged groups and - HE providers testing informal learning settings for their students to augment the scope of their education and increase the relevance of HEIs through their third mission. The results were mostly the impact and effects on the participants: - development of creative and social cohesion skills through creativity and interdisciplinarity even for young people/students following studies and disciplines that tend to be more technical, - informal and non-formal education addressed to the personal, professional and social awareness of young people who create joint creative solutions built through engagement with their communities and - improvement of young people's capacity to become active citizens by showing and asserting their ideas for better urban development to local, regional and national policy makers. - R2 Joint publication on an adaptive model for creating children's play areas: This outcome consists of a digital publication that proposes an adaptive model for creating children's play areas. It is intended for : - youth organisations seeking to pass on the search for creative solutions to social challenges, social responsibility, cooperation and the spirit of sustainability in their respective future careers, - stakeholders who own or manage children's play areas or who have decision-making responsibilities likely to make these spaces more sustainable and dynamic in terms of social texture and cohesion, The joint publication disseminates the lessons learnt and the results of a tested model for educational activities and youth work, helping young people acquire skills and competences, including digital skills, through mixed formal and non-formal training focused on interdisciplinarity and involvement in community consultation actions. The results of this outcome are : - increased awareness of the benefits of social dialogue on future-oriented visions for urban living environments for young participants, communities and social groups, - sustainability mindsets for public spaces reallocated for more opportunities, - a new vision for better play and learning environments for children and as a space for social integration and cohesion and cultural education, - social inclusion is strengthened by promoting innovative approaches to participatory and intercultural dialogue linking young people, local communities and stakeholders. The Place for Play project has opened doors for the acquisition of skills in the management of public spaces, while at the same time raising awareness of the objectives of sustainable development in urban planning.