Through a rich combination of workshops, reflective practices and creative processes, the project invited participants to rethink how we perceive the future and our role in shaping it. Every morning began with a Morning Circle, cultivating trust, shared energy and emotional attunement within the group.

And then, activities evolved progressively: from establishing a safer space to deepening our understanding of media narratives, thinking systems, and mental health. Using non-formal education tools (movement, debate, collage, mapping, writing, and collective design) the course opened a space where youth workers could reconnect with imagination as a pedagogical tool and reflect on the emotional impact of today’s overwhelmingly dystopian culture.

“Utopian Thinking” pursued the following objectives;Reclaim imagination as a tool for social change and youth work.

• Understand how dystopian narratives shape our affective and political landscapes.
• Develop practical and accessible methodologies to introduce utopian thinking to young people.
• Explore connections between mental health, hope and the ability to imagine alternatives.
• Strengthen participants’ facilitation skills through creation, testing and peer feedback.
• Promote cooperation, reflection and collective empowerment in an intercultural group of youth workers.

Those goals were achieved through activities revolving around three fundamental pillars:

To imagine better futures, we first needed to deepen our understanding of the present. The group therefore engaged in a series of powerful sessions designed to reveal the complexity of today’s global challenges. Through the Cartography of Desirable Futures, participants mapped initiatives from around the world that already embody positive social and ecological transformations. The World Café on Utopia and Eco-anxiety opened a space to collectively examine how mental health, democracy, technology and imagination intersect in our daily lives.

In the Silent Exhibition, a non-verbal reflection space, participants interacted with texts, videos and images, responding through written exchanges that fostered introspection and non-confrontational dialogue. Activities addressing Global Inequalities and Root Causes invited participants to embody data on population, wealth, migration and CO₂ emissions, making abstract disparities tangible. Finally, the Systems Thinking sessions shifted the focus from linear causality to interconnected structures, using tools such as the iceberg model and problem-tree mapping. Together, these activities provided a systemic lens through which to interpret global issues and underscored the necessity of addressing root causes rather than synthoms.

After analysing where we come from and where we stand, the final part of the Training Course focused on imagining where we want to go. Participants engaged in a range of visionary sessions that invited them to project themselves into more just and sustainable futures. A Guided Utopian Envisioning opened this phase, offering an immersive meditation through which participants imagined the year 2035 in a world where social and environmental justice had been achieved. This was followed by Build a Dream City, an exercise grounded in the UN Sustainable Development Goals that intertwined creativity with systemic thinking as groups designed their own sustainable urban environments. In the Methodology Creation Lab, participants became co-creators of educational tools, designing, testing and refining their own activities for youth work inspired by utopian principles. Finally, through the Toolkit Creation process, all the methods developed during the course were consolidated into a shared resource.

The main tangible outcome of Utopian Thinking is a booklet of activities created by the participants: a practical toolkit gathering methodologies, creative exercises, and utopian-thinking approaches for youth work. This resource has been shared with organizations, youth workers and practitioners across Europe to support the development of hopeful, transformative educational spaces and it’s available in the SALTO platform.

In addition to the toolkit, several participants wrote articles, and some of the methodologies implemented during the project (such as the New Narratives Collage or the Silent Exhibition) have already been implemented in external workshops, demonstrating the project's immediate impact and transferability.

Although Utopian Thinking concluded in Laroin, its spirit continues through the practices, ideas and connections that participants have carried back home in youth centres, classrooms, NGOs and communities across the world.