The defense of the projects of the School of Leaders of Youth Volunteer teams for the development of urban spaces "My Territory" was held on November 9 at the Boiling Point of NSTU NET. The project is being implemented with grant support from the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs (Rosmolodezh).
The participants of the School worked out their solutions to the problems of the local territories of Novosibirsk and Berdsk under the guidance of mentors. Within the framework of the event, a presentation of the projects was held: "How to improve the territory around the Tower on Karl Marx Square?", "Is the esthetic landscape of Pervomaiskaya Street possible in the city of Berdsk?", "Does the Soviet district need the Kaleidoscope center?", "Why are employees of youth centers reluctant to write grants?", "How to organize all-season sports on Zatulinka?", "Marathon of participatory design for youth centers". All projects have real customers: municipalities, local public authorities, deputies of the City Council, and entrepreneurs. The defense of the projects was attended by customers from the Youth Policy Department of Novosibirsk and Berdsk, and the Council of Deputies of Novosibirsk.
According to Olga Kolesova, the administrative head of the Urban Research Laboratory and chairman of the organizing committee of the My Territory project, the essence of the School is to create interesting projects for both young people and the city, which will later be reflected in the development of Novosibirsk and Berdsk.
One of the mentors of the project, Irina Skalaban, identified two important stages in the work of teams on projects: understanding and actually describing the urban problem and moving from this plane to a solution, and then forming interest on the part of the customer and the city as a whole.
"At the Leadership School, we focus on teaching the formulation of the problem we are working with. The correct statement of the problem is already 50% of its solution. We also need people who can organize project teams. We pay special attention to these two competencies when working with our students," Irina Skalaban added.
Upon completion of the course, graduates of the School of Leaders of Youth Volunteer Teams for the Development of Urban Spaces "My Territory" were awarded certificates of additional professional education. Youth volunteer teams will implement the promising solutions found during the work of the school directly on the city territory. This will contribute to the development of volunteerism in the field of initiative urbanism in Novosibirsk and Berdsk and the launch of projects to create a comfortable urban environment.
Three universities participated in the project: NSTU NETI, NSU, and NGUADI. The school consisted of several thematic stages: sphera of influence, sfera of design, sfera of research, sfera of management and communication, work on projects and their preliminary presentation. The mentors of the School of Leaders were the following: Doctor of Sociological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Social Work and Social Anthropology of NSTU NET, scientific consultant of the project "My Territory" Irina Skalaban, leader of the Boiling Point of NSTU NET, head of the Laboratory of Computer technologies for the translation of Russian sign language, Kirill Zubarev, specialist in socio-cultural design, social marketing, marketing of territories, Lada Yurchenko, Doctor of Sociology, Nadezhda Vavilina, a member of the NETI Space project team, and Ksenia Kalashnikova, a junior researcher at NSU.