Participation and activity of young people in the suburb

Objectives

In the study information is acquired about the state and regional segregation of certain suburbs of Lahti and Lappeenranta and also how segregation could be relieved in connection especially with the life of the young people in the residential areas. The co-creation is made using the multivoiced approach directly with the young people and experts who are directly or indirectly in touch with them.

Conceptually it is concentrated on the subjective wellbeing of the young people who live in the suburb, in the voluntary sense of community, an institutional confidence and wellbeing learning, which takes place in many kinds of places and premises in the study. In the development is utilized service design connected to gamification methods and methods of the applied theatre as well as community management.

Implementation

In the study, it is leaned on mixed methods research: it is acquired and analyzed many kinds of materials (for example city ethnography, inquiries) which benefit the study. In the study the following questions are answered:

1. How different suburbs should be developed so that they would increase the experienced wellbeing of the young people and would reduce segregation?

2. What kind of positions the young people take in their suburb and what kind of significance the institutional confidence has for constructing the positions?

3. What kind of operations model does support the participation and activity of the young people in the suburb?

Results

The research provides new information on the subjective wellbeing of young residents and their learning of the subject, as well as living environments that produce wellbeing, including various facilities and places.

The goal is to create guidelines to help develop different urban neighborhoods in a way, that serves the wellbeing of residents as well as possible and that prevents youth exclusion by strengthening inclusion.

The management of the research cities will be included in the development in order to create a viable model to support youth wellbeing and evaluate youth impact. The research data is transferable to similar contexts in other cities and can be used in the development of similar regions.

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