Written by Isabella Madsen, MELLEMFOLKELIGT SAMVIRKE
Sustainability trough strong partnerships
How do we create sustainable activities that lasts after the project ends? This is one of the essential questions in the PAClife project. Now the project is coming to a close, and how the activities live on depends (among other things) on how we started.
The main goal in Denmark were to create a sustainable and meaningful activity that could possibility last after end project. Therefore, we chose to partner up with a school in one of the local areas (Esbjerg) where we work. The idea was to qualify both a teacher and a group of older school kids in the PAClife methods. The methods should be tools for facilitating games for younger kids at the school. In that way the school got a team of young people that would volunteer for creating a better experience for the youngest children. We made sure that the teachers were trained in the methods as well to keep the young people active after the formal project end.
To create a cohesive process, we made a partnership with an NGO called GAME. The purpose was first to train the young people in voluntary work in their school yard and later inspire them to do voluntary work in their community. GAME makes voluntary work for kids through sport. Hopefully PAClife is a steppingstone for some of the young people to engage in more voluntary work after they finish primary school.
Social sustainability in youth engaging projects is crucial for the young people’s motivation to participate in other projects further on. Therefore, we have responsibility as youth-organizations to ensure that we have a strong framework especially after our projects are done.