MAMYFU activated young people living in disadvantaged communities and promoted their individual creative skills to strengthen their capacity for a better future for themselves and their communities. Several young participants from marginalized or risky life situations were able to enhance their self-esteem, future orientation, and skills via project activities.
 
The project organised three intensive one-week courses where different methods were used to empower young people and improve their entrepreneurial skills. In Finland: Making my future - photovoice; in Latvia Future Post-corona - drama and improvisation; in Estonia: My Future, my planet - educational gamification were used to support young people’s skills development in a proactive way. Intensive courses brought together young participants and project staff to work together in a collaborative way, to learn with each other, from each other and about each other. In between the intensive courses, creative online workshops were organized to orientate to the intensive weeks´ themes and to keep up participants engagement. The courses were evaluated in feedback forms, discussions and via deeper group interviews.

Project participants were engaged in small local projects. Through that, youth became more visible, gained local recognition and empowerment. In Finland the participants produced and organized a photo exhibition, in Latvia a public culture event at the local town square, and in Estonia they created educational learning games. 

Creative art- and action-based activities and methods that were used and tested in this project have been found effective and engaging for project´s target group and objectives. All methods are cost-effective and grassroot-oriented and can be renewed and repeated later on. The material was produced together with the young participants as texts, blogs, videos and photo collages and published on project’s virtual platform: https://projects.tuni.fi/mamyfu/  [4]