The Project
Future Narratives is a strategic partnership between six organisations across Europe, co-funded by Erasmus+ to support innovation in the field of youth. It is addressed to young people aged 18-30 years old, particularly those from migrant or disadvantaged backgrounds.
Over the next two years, Future Narratives will invite youth workers and young people to join in sharing our experiences and developing new skills in a series of events in Spain, Greece, Germany and Sweden, blended throughout with our digital platform. The experience will enable all participants to build a new narrative for themselves, to place their individual voices into dialogue with each other, and to tell their stories to the world.
Our project aims to introduce young people to Future Narratives as a way to develop their Futures Literacy. Futures Literacy describes the capability to decide why and how to use your imagination to introduce the future into the present. Since 2012, UNESCO has been developing the concept of Futures Literacy through international centres, seeking to understand “the frames people use to understand tomorrow.”
This project sees narrative as the central tool through which people are able to understand and build possible futures. Future Narratives will enable young people to use narrative as a central tool for empowerment at a personal and a community level. Future Narratives originates from the belief that it is through telling the stories of ourselves and of our communities that we can understand and invest in our possible futures.
Our project brings together the concepts and methods of storytelling, narrative and future literacy as a way to empower individuals and communities. We use storytelling as the key heuristic to activate the capacity to reflect on the past, the present and the future, and to recognise different paths, approaches, and solutions. Introducing young people to the concept of narrative as a way of understanding their present, we will foster their understanding of the power of culture, stories and visions to bring about a better future. This understanding will give them not only the tools to work on a vision for themselves and for their community, but will also develop soft skills recognised as vital for our future society, such as cultural understanding, critical thinking, communication, and social media literacy.
Future Narratives is specifically dedicated to engaging, connecting and empowering young people, following the priorities of the Erasmus+ programme for the field of youth.
Key project activities include:
- Future Narratives Digital Platform: an online space for young people to create and present their narratives of the future, for curation of global expertise in storytelling and Futures Literacy, and to disseminate our work to stakeholders now and in the future.
- Training events for youth workers to share and develop their knowledge and experience, through dialogue between partner organisations and with experts in the fields of narrative, storytelling, and Futures Literacy.
- Future Narratives Workshops and Labs with young people, held in Spain, Greece and Germany and Sweden, to experiment and innovate with the use of narrative, storytelling and Futures Literacy. These will enable young people to share their perspectives, develop understanding of the stories told by us and about us, and nurture the capacity to rewrite our visions of the future.
- Dissemination events in each country, including the final Future Narratives Exhibition to be held in Sweden, to communicate the progress and results of the project to local and European stakeholders, allowing young people to tell their stories and make their voices heard.