When: 30 May – 4 June 2025 (30th is the arrival day, 4th is the departure day)
Where: Bacau, Romania
Organised in the context of: YEP! (Citizens and EU Values-2024-CHILD-Project Number: 101190098)
Deadline to apply: 19 May 2025
- Are you interested in children’s and youth participation in decision making, particularly spatial planning?
- Are you a teacher, youth worker, urban planner, architect, youth activist, and/or policy-maker, committed to participatory planning?
- Are you living in Romania?
Join us for a 5-day training course in Bacau, Romania, and be part of a larger process to rethink and reshape the ways children and youth participate in decisions related to the future of their socio-spatial environments.
Why youth participatory spatial planning?
In the face of accelerating ecological crises and deepening socio-spatial inequalities, it is crucial to recognise and include those who are most affected yet least heard, such as children and youth. Despite being disproportionately impacted by environmental degradation and socio-spatial inequalities, children continue to be excluded from decision-making processes, such as spatial planning. Cities remain predominantly adult-centric spaces, often failing to reflect the diverse needs and experiences of younger generations—particularly girls, children from minority backgrounds, children with disability, and those from socio-economically disadvantaged communities.
Meaningful youth participation in spatial planning is not only a matter of democratic rights but also a critical tool for sustainability and justice. When children are given the opportunity to share their lived experiences, they help shape more inclusive, safe, and healthy environments. Yet, current participation mechanisms often remain tokenistic, one-off, or disconnected from real influence on policy.
The YEP project seeks to change this. Rooted in action research and informed by a critical, intersectional approach, YEP empowers children—especially adolescents aged 12–18—to actively engage in spatial planning. It brings together planners, teachers, social workers, activists, and policymakers to co-create transformative spatial visions with children, challenging dominant planning models and pushing for policies that reflect radical sustainability, such as degrowth spatial politics, and socio-spatial justice.
YEP not only creates hands-on participatory processes but also works to institutionalise and scale them, ensuring that youth voices become an integral part of democratic planning at the local, national, and EU levels.
This training course is the second step of the YEP! (Citizens and EU Values-2024-CHILD) project. It is a hands-on training program designed to equip you with methodologies for engaging young people in participatory spatial planning. Participants will learn tools to involve youth in shaping their socio-spatial environments.
YEP! will further involve a series of interconnected activities. Participants of the training course will have the opportunity to be actively involved in these activities implementing them with and for the children and youth. Specifically, they will have priority to join – if they wish – the below next activities:
- Local implementation of the Youth Participatory Spatial Planning Processes (September 2025 – February 2026): A practical phase where young people (aged 12-18) actively engage in planning activities and decision-making processes within their communities.
- Child-Led Campaigns on spatial rights and radical sustainability. (January 2026 – March 2026)
- Youth-driven awareness campaigns advocating for children’s rights to inclusive, safe, and sustainable spaces. These campaigns will challenge traditional spatial planning perspectives and promote radical sustainability ideas.
- Local Youth-Led Unconferences (March 2026 – June 2026): Open and flexible spaces where young people set the agenda, share experiences, their campaigns, and propose solutions for youth-friendly and sustainable socio-spatial environments.
What is covered
Activity and meal costs are covered by the organizers. Accommodation, transportation and other expenses will be covered by the participants.
How to Apply
Apply by 19/05/2025 here
In your motivation letter (up to 250 words), please indicate whether you are also interested in and committed to participating in the next steps of the project, as described above (for details see here).