On February 17th -18th the first transnational meeting of the new URBEX project took place at Lisbon’s Impact House. The event gave the project’s partners the opportunity to finally meet in person, to discuss the aims of the project and to exchange ideas on how it will be realised.
URBEX’s central concept is that the neighbourhood can be understood as an educational environment and, accordingly, that urban exploration can be used as a method for promoting neighbourhood empowerment and engagement for youths at risk of exclusion. The project activates partnerships between organisations developing innovative approaches toward working with urban exploration and young people, and will ultimately deliver a handbook and a toolkit aimed at facilitating further work on the topic. The project will also train youth workers to employ explorative urban approaches in sensitive neighbourhoods across Europe, and will engage youths at risk of exclusion directly in five local labs aimed at testing tools out on field.
Finally, URBEX is also aimed at creating a network of organisations that work with youths in Europe to improve and share urban exploration methods for social inclusion and community empowerment via an innovative new online platform.
