ROOTED | Place-Based Youth Work, Resilience & Local Action

ROOTED — Resilience, Optimism and Openness in Territories under Environmental Duress is an Erasmus+ KA153-YOU project designed to strengthen the professional capacity of youth workers working with young people affected by environmental change and territorial transformation.

The project brings together two complementary areas of expertise: psychosocial well-being and non-formal education, and territory, sustainable tourism, cultural heritage and digital storytelling. It responds to a growing challenge: young people may experience climate anxiety, eco-grief and a sense of powerlessness as the places where they live undergo environmental, social and tourism-related change.

Through a 7-day Professional Development Activity in Tbilisi, youth workers will learn and practise methods including community mapping, listening walks, intergenerational interviews, digital storytelling, active listening and structured well-being activities. The programme moves progressively from understanding and experiencing to practising and planning, with approximately 70% of contact time designed to be participant-active.

Participants will then transfer their learning into their own communities through documented local follow-up activities. The project aims to turn environmental concern into concrete local action rooted in a place.

Main objectives

ROOTED aims to:

equip youth workers with practical methods to recognise and respond appropriately to eco-anxiety and climate-related distress;
transfer participatory place-based methods such as community mapping, listening walks, intergenerational interviews and digital storytelling;
develop a shared safeguarding and referral framework;
produce and test a practical Facilitator's Handbook;
strengthen long-term cooperation between European and Eastern Partnership youth organisations.
Coolvoyage Destinations' role

Coolvoyage Destinations is the applicant and coordinator of ROOTED, responsible for overall coordination, financial management, project quality and partner communication.

Its methodological contribution focuses on territory and sustainable tourism, participatory territorial approaches, digital storytelling and dissemination through its existing publishing ecosystem.

Expected impact

ROOTED is designed to train 24 youth workers, with a minimum of six participants with fewer opportunities. Each participating organisation will subsequently deliver at least one local activity with young people, reaching at least 60 young people directly during the follow-up phase.

The project will produce a tested Facilitator's Handbook, national safeguarding and referral frameworks, participant-created digital stories and an evaluation report documenting what worked, what did not and what was adapted.