Hacktive Youth project is an Erasmus+ Capacity Building project with partners from Belgium, Italy, Greece, Germany, Morocco, Tunisia, Palestine, and Egypt. It aims to promote active citizenship among youth through the innovative approach of the social hackathon. This handbook presents the consolidated findings of the project’s research phase (Work Package 2) and showcases best practices identified by all partners. The objective is to provide youth workers, educators, and stakeholders with a comprehensive resource to understand youth needs and to apply effective strategies for fostering youth civic engagement across diverse contexts. The handbook will also serve as a basis for developing training materials and will be translated into partner languages to maximize its reach and impact.
The Project Background
Around the world, many young people, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, face barriers that hinder their participation in civic and community life. The Hacktive Youth project recognizes that empowering youth as active citizens is critical for building inclusive, democratic societies. By placing young people at the center of their learning process, the project leverages non-formal methods to develop not only knowledge and practical abilities but also key transversal skills (communication, critical thinking, empathy, motivation, problem-solving) that enable youth to become drivers of social change. Social hackathons, intensive, collaborative problem-solving events focused on social good, are a core strategy in this approach, encouraging innovation, teamwork and creativity while addressing real societal challenges.
Target Groups
The studies focused on youth experiencing various forms of disadvantage (economic, social, educational, geographic) and the youth workers who support them. For example, participants included NEET youth, those from marginalized neighborhoods, or involved in civic service programs, as well as youth workers such as educators, NGO staff, and volunteers working directly with these populations. Efforts were made to ensure diversity in age, gender, and background among respondents.
