They are under 25, have a change-maker attitude, a will to co-design the future, and have an impact on Swiss Politics! Introducing our futures champions project 2023, with champions from the cantons of Basel, Bern, Geneva, Vaud, and Zurich!
What?
We identified and selected futures champions among a pool of Swiss youths with the goal to represent different identities of the Swiss confederation.
- First, they will receive training by foraus on futures literacy, participatory policy-making and basic notions of the Swiss political system.
- Second, they will run workshops in your local community to identify desirable outcomes of the future and develop actionable policy recommendations based on those visions.
- Finally, the results of these workshops will be shared with representatives of the forming government in 2024.
What is Futures Literacy?
You might be rightly wondering now… what is this “futures literacy” thing? Rightly so! This is a quite new term that is used by UNESCO to define a capability: a universal skill built on the ability to imagine the future to encourage imagination, preparedness, and the ability to reinvent and recover as changes occur. Within this concept, the future becomes a policy-making tool to transform current governance.
Many NGOs are now using Futures Literacy to help young people visualize future scenarios and work on policy recommendations. We have also used Futures Literacy in past projects, for example, to help youths in the Northeast Asia region visualize common future perspectives.
When?
Champions will use foraus’ digital crowd-innovation platform Policy Kitchen to conduct local participatory futures workshops at their cantons of origin:
- Bern - 5 September 2023, SüdLand Forum
- Zurich - 6 September 2023, Glockenhof
- Lausanne - 18 September 2023, Espace Dickens
- Geneva - 20 September 2023, Foound
- Basel - 4 October 2023, TBD
Outcome
The outputs of the workshops that our Champions will run will then be compiled into a policy publication that will be presented and discussed with members of the forming government in 2024, to influence the new government's agenda.