EUth Wonders in Marrakech: Co-Creating Active Citizenship with Hacktive Youth 💪💪

Our Wonders in Marrakech

This month, participants as part of the EUth Wonders team took part in an inspiring transnational training meeting in Marrakech, Morocco, as part of our ongoing Erasmus+ project: Hacktive Youth.

HACKTIVE YOUTH PROJECT PAGE

The Hacktive Youth project aims to empower youth workers with innovative tools to foster active citizenship, social participation, and youth-led solutions, using the Social Hackathon methodology as a central approach. Throughout the week, we blended theory with practice, and our intercultural exchange was integral to our hands-on learning.

Our delegation consisted of three participants and two team leaders, who joined other youth workers, trainers, and partner organizations from across Europe and the MENA region for an intensive week-long learning experience.

Building Trust and Understanding Local Realities

The training opened with trust-building activities, intercultural icebreakers, and space to share expectations and concerns. These first touchpoints were essential in creating a safe and collaborative learning environment, something that would remain central throughout the week.

One of the early highlights was our Community Dialogue on Youth Engagement and Active Citizenship, where participants worked directly with local young people in Morocco.

Through facilitated discussions, we explored real challenges faced by youth in the local context, from barriers to participation to structural inequalities, grounding our project firmly in lived realities.

From Dialogue to Co-Creation

As the program progressed, the focus shifted from listening to co-creating. Together with local stakeholders and youth organizations, participants mapped challenges to active citizenship across partner countries. These sessions helped identify common patterns as well as context-specific differences, reinforcing the importance of adaptable, locally rooted solutions.

What was particularly insightful for participants was our group trip to the Medina, with a guided activity of observing local traditions, community, and support, in addition to interviewing young people on the street about their perceptions of the barriers present to promote safety, sustainability, and community in Marrakech.

EUth Wonders Leading on Safe Spaces

A special highlight for our team was leading the workshop “How to Create the Safe Space”, focusing on:

• Creating safe and brave spaces for youth

• Facilitating without directing

• Empowering youth-led solutions through trust, tools, and time

This session strengthened participants’ capacity to support young people in expressing ideas confidently and to respect different ideas and values, and help to transform concerns into actionable challenges.

Experiencing the Social Hackathon in Practice

At the end of the week, our learnings turned fully experiential with a Social Hackathon Simulation. Working in mixed teams, participants ideated, prototyped, and pitched solutions to civic challenges in a "Shark Tank" style.

Peer feedback sessions and youth worker testimonials enriched the process, offering honest insights into both the potential and challenges of applying the Social Hackathon approach in real-life youth work settings.

Our workshop concluded with an International Cultural Night, celebrating diversity and strengthening intercultural bonds beyond the workshop space.

Final Thoughts

As we return from Marrakech, our participants come with renewed motivation, strengthened partnerships, and concrete tools to support young people in becoming active, engaged citizens.

The Hacktive Youth training reinforced our belief that meaningful participation starts with safe spaces, trust, and youth-led processes.

We are excited to translate this learning into action, help our participants adapt the Social Hackathon approach to their local context, and continue working alongside young people to turn ideas into impact locally, and across borders.