Four of us (Lina, Ivo, Carola and Biz) have been at the Youth Initiative Forum conference over the last few days, and what better place to do the Fire Task?
We decided to work together on the task, we thought about transforming a space here, but it seemed that the most appropriate thing was to inspire attendees to take action at home, so we concentrated on inspiring that through the activities described below.
Here's a video explaining more...
Here's the results...
We
hosted a session on: How can we bring the Spirit of the conference back home?
During the session we had a 2 hour
brainstorm and everyone was enthusiastic about all the things we could do. We
then created a Facebook group where we can post all the actions people are
doing afterwards so keep up date and encourage each other.
We came up with a whole list of things that
people can do back home which we will distribute at the end of the week and we
have a big harvest hanging in the main hall to inspire others to do the same. Some
of the main ideas that came out were:
1. Leave nice messages on hidden
places in the train, plane or car. Some of us are hitchhiking back, so we will
think of some questions we can ask the nice people that take us.
2. A flashmob on the metro, to
spread the message: Are you living your dream, or are you the sidekick in
someone else’s dream?
3. A wandering book – where you
note precious moments for you and you pass it on to another person until it is
full. At the end is our address so that we can get it back in the end.
How do we spark a fire in people?
You get them to dance! We initiated a samba
roda, which then evolved into a full blown dancing frenzy with live music,
generating a great energy and warming everybody up.
We
invited people to draw their hands, and write inside what they will take away with them
from the Youth Initiative Forum.
The Initiative Forum is great for inspiring
ideas but we wanted to spark action from the simmering pot of ideas that a
conference generates. We challenged people to share how they would get their
hands stuck in once they got back home. We asked people to draw their hands and
write down their commitment to action. We then hung up the results to inspire
others to action.
We
gave people badges to spark conversations
There are 250 people here, and it's a great opportunity to collaborate and share ideas, but sometimes difficult to start the right conversations. To get people connecting, we created
medalions for people to wear. On one side people wrote the
talents they have and on the other the talents that they need in their
projects, lives etc. This way you will faster find the people that are right
for you, and more initiatives might evolve after the conference thanks to this.
We
started an origami domino-effect…
We taught people origami, asking them to
pass on the skill to others, thus sparking a skills-forward, encouraging people
to share their talents with others.