TURFU: Imagine the future of marginalized territories

In some places, people find it more difficult to imagine a future in the place where they live, a necessary step towards individual and collective empowerment. These marginalized territories (e.g., urban peripheries, rural areas) are not part of the common imagination of the future. Consequently, for the inhabitants of these territories, it is often easier to imagine their departure than to think about how to transform them. At the same time, according to UNESCO, improving forward-looking literacy enables people to perceive change more quickly and make choices in a constantly evolving world marked by climate change, pandemics, economic crises and social exclusion. According to UNESCO, without an image of the future that inspires hope and fosters collaboration, the risk of despair and disillusionment is high. The risk of a lack of imagination can be overcome by improving knowledge of the future within communities, particularly the most disadvantaged. TURFU aims to give young people in marginalized areas the opportunity to imagine and transform alternative futures for the places where they live.

TURFU's main objective is to provide youth workers with skills, tools and methods for training in knowledge of the future, in order to develop the imagination and reveal and strengthen the future-knowledge capacities of young people aged 16 to 25 living in marginalized areas. Our project aims to achieve four specific objectives: 1. Strengthen young people's ability to imagine possible futures through participatory learning workshops. 2. Encourage young people to think critically and creatively about what the future might be, and empower them to shape it. 3. Support youth workers and training staff to develop innovative educational programs in non-formal or informal education. More specifically, we aim to support capacity building for youth leaders in speculative design, future education and digital prototyping. 4. Create exchanges between young adults in Europe, notably on their vision of the future. The project aims to bring together contributions from different countries to create a common imaginative framework made up of multiple visions of the future.

As planned, multiple activities were launched simultaneously at the project's start. The first year focused on designing and developing the initial project results, which led to the creation of the first pilot by September 2023. Throughout this period, brainstorming sessions, tests, and transnational project meetings (TPMs) were organized to refine our tools. From September 2023 to May 2024, project results were iterated based on feedback from the first pilot. Key milestones included the TPM#4, which helped improve the training guide, playbook, and website. After May 2024, we focused on final dissemination activities, including the TPM5, a major event at Gaîté Lyrique, and training workshops. Although youth organizations faced internal challenges, such as limited time and budget cuts, several partners conducted TURFU workshops independently. In parallel, we conducted regular surveys to ensure continuous improvement of the tools. We also organized communication events to increase visibility, such as the workshop at Gaîté Lyrique, which involved speculative worldbuilding, and a visualization workshop in Milan. These events were designed to engage new participants. Finally, multiplier events were held to share the project.

More concretely, the team developed a set of resources for workshops aimed at youth facilitators and their youth groups, including: - A methodology rooted in speculative design and non-formal learning, offering a 3-phase process: inspiration, world-building, and transformation. - A toolkit presented in a Playbook with 5 sections, each tailored to specific educational goals and aligned with the methodology. - An online platform for facilitators and youth to access resources, share and discover workshops across Europe, and exchange visions of the future within a virtual reality space, "The Agora." To strengthen the project’s development, five TPMs were held, alongside testing workshops with facilitators and youth in France and Italy. These workshops helped refine the tools. Following the first pilot, a TURFU Jam was organized, simultaneously in three countries, allowing for further consolidation of learnings and broader dissemination of the tools. After this, the second pilot phase trained 40 individuals for autonomous workshops. Finally, multiplier events in each partner country concluded the project, expanding the impact of the TURFU tools and methodology.