Youth Mayors Field Guide

(in pilot)

Overview

This is a free, online guide and set of tools written for teenagers to help them:

• Investigate, design/plan, take action and share and scale student projects
• Use systems thinking and design thinking to make positive change in their communities
• Apply the Doughnut model in student changemaking projects.

The Youth Mayors Field Guide contains 4 project stages and 15 modules, with more than 40 tools to help students navigate the changemaking process. It features the Doughnut as a way to focus student projects on human and planetary needs and uses the lenses developed for the Doughnut city portrait methodology as an evaluation tool for solutions.

Why use it?

The Youth Mayors Field Guide places great emphasis on the investigative stage of changemaking. It encourages students to take time to understand communities, patterns of behaviour, systems and mental models before designing solutions to problems.

Who is it for? 

Written primarily for students ages 14-19, but helpful for anyone who wants to make change in their communities.

How long does it take?

This is a totally flexible tool. 

It can guide students through an entire project that lasts from a semester or longer. 

Or the individual tools can be used for all kinds of research and action as needed for developing skills or providing support to investigate, design/plan, take action and/or share and scale.

How many people is it for?

Can be used by individual students on their own or in teams, with teachers/mentors or without.

What materials do you need?

No materials needed. Everything is accessible in the Youth Mayors Field Guide (link below). Teachers/mentors should become familiar with the structure of the curriculum and tools to help students plan, especially if there is a limited time-frame provided in the school timetable.

What does the facilitator need to know or be able to do? 

Teachers/mentors should become familiar with the curriculum and tools through the Youth Mayors Field Guide website.

Acknowledgements

The programme is currently in pilot. Feedback on the curriculum and tools is welcome through the feedback form on the site.

United World College Maastricht - Youth Mayors concept and grant manager

• Lodewijk van Oord
• Iva Horejsi
• Sandra van den Tillaard

Strothoff International School - Lead curriculum design and writing

• Jennifer Brandsberg-Engelmann
• Rosica Koleva
• Julia Campbell

United World College Robert Bosch

• Thomas Droessel
• Laurence Nodder

United World College Red Cross Norway

• Michael Kendall

International School of Brussels

• Michelle Brown
• Adam Salem
• Anne Hédoin-Dupré

Developed in 2020 with an Erasmus+ grant

Links

https://sites.google.com/uwcmaastricht.nl/youth-mayors-curriculum/home