Young People Lead the Way at Imaginarium Dissemination Event
At a recent gathering at Portrush Youth Centre, young people, researchers, youth workers and policymakers came together to celebrate the culmination of the Imaginarium, a creative youth engagement and research programme exploring how young people in rural and coastal areas understand and respond to sustainability challenges.
Illustration Credit: Andy Henry
The event was hosted by Deirdre Bradley, Senior Youth Officer for Causeway Coast and Glens, and brought together representatives from the Education Authority Youth Service, DAERA, Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council, and Cara Hunter MLA, alongside the young people who were at the heart of the programme.
The highlight of the morning was the young people themselves. Participants from across the Causeway Coast and Glens youth groups took to the floor to share their “Big Ideas” – imaginative, place-based prototypes developed during the programme in response to real sustainability challenges facing their communities. Their presentations were a vivid demonstration of what young people can achieve when given the space, support and creative tools to think seriously about the world they are inheriting.
Youth workers Christine O’Neill, Ria Mulholland and Tara McHugh reflected on the experience of delivering the programme, sharing their perspectives on its impact and what it revealed about the creativity and capacity of the young people they work with.
Research findings from the programme were presented by Dr Méabh McCaffrey-Lau and Dr Nina Liebhaber of Ulster University’s Future Island-Island project. Their findings pointed to the power of creative and place-based approaches in engaging young people with sustainability and environmental challenges, and offered evidence that programmes like the Imaginarium can meaningfully shift how young people think, feel and act in relation to these issues. Notably, young people who participated through youth groups showed particularly strong outcomes across every measure, including sustainability behaviour and design thinking awareness.
The event closed with a rich question and answer session and discussion, reflecting the shared commitment of everyone in the room to taking young people’s perspectives seriously as a civic and research resource.
We are deeply grateful to all the young people, youth workers, school staff and community partners who made the Imaginarium possible, and to everyone who joined us to celebrate what was achieved.
The Future Island-Island Imaginarium programme is a collaboration between Ulster University Future Island-Island Programme and the Education Authority Youth Service, Causeway Coast and Glens.