Youth and the Future
OUR CIRCLES / PROJECTS
The Youth Council
What if young people were in charge? We invited seven young people to explore alternative forms of governance, drawing on Indigenous knowledge and different traditions of collective decision-making.
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the Story
What if young people were in charge?
What if we looked beyond the systems of governance we know and imagined other ways of organising society?
During MDT Week Kansen 2026, we challenged a group of seven young people to imagine a new island community of 1,000 people and design how it would be governed. Through encounters with people from the Bafut and Samia communities, they explored different traditions of collective decision-making, leadership and responsibility.
The process invited them to question dominant ideas about governance and consider whose knowledge shapes the systems we live by. Their response was a proposal centred on a Youth Council, imagining a community where everyone has a voice and people and nature are cared for.
How we gathered
Imagining a new community
Over five days, the group developed a shared vision for their island, identifying what mattered most: safety, being heard and caring for the natural environment.
Learning from different governance traditions
Conversations with people from the Bafut and Samia communities introduced the young people to different ways of organising communities and making collective decisions, opening up perspectives beyond dominant governance models.
Designing a Youth Council
Drawing on these exchanges, the group developed their own proposal for youth-led governance, which they presented in a video to parents, teachers, fellow students and museum visitors.
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Do you want to support?
We welcome opportunities to bring this approach into new educational and cultural contexts, creating spaces where young people can explore different knowledge systems and imagine more inclusive ways of organising society.
THE TEAM
Who makes it happen
STORIES AND NEWS
Stories about the project
The Youth Council
In April 2026, Design Reparations co-designed and delivered The Youth Council, a program for Gynmasium students in Nijmegen in collaboration with Spinsel, a social design studio and the Museum Orientalis. It brought together students aged 14 to 15 around a simple question: “What if youth was in charge? How would the world look like? How […]
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