Projects Portfolio

This dissertation explores how young people experience and make meaning of open-access youth clubs as spaces of belonging, safety, and everyday social life. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in two youth clubs, one in Romania and one in England, the study examines how space and place are co-created through relationships, routines, and participation.

Using participatory and creative methods, including digital mapping in The Sims 4, creative storytelling workshops, participant observation, and a survey, the research centres young people’s perspectives on what makes a youth club feel like a place where they can relax, connect, and be themselves. The findings highlight striking similarities in how young people describe their youth clubs as “fun” and “about friends,” despite differences in national context and levels of youth participation in decision-making.

👉 Read the full dissertation here!

Mastering Volunteering was an Erasmus+ funded international training programme focused on strengthening the quality, sustainability, and long-term impact of youth volunteering initiatives across Europe. The programme brought together youth workers, volunteer coordinators, and organisational representatives from a wide range of local, regional, and city-level organisations working in youth participation and civic engagement.

Participants came from organisations across Bulgaria, Italy, Greece, Serbia, Spain, North Macedonia, Portugal, Romania, and Poland, including community-based NGOs, youth alliances, foundations, and innovation hubs. This diversity created a shared learning space between practitioners operating in different cultural and institutional contexts, while facing common challenges around volunteer coordination, motivation, care, and retention.

I designed and facilitated the entire training programme, leading on methodology, curriculum design, session planning, and delivery. The programme combined conceptual input with applied, practice-based learning, supporting participants to critically reflect on their own volunteering ecosystems while developing tools adaptable to local realities.

Core themes included:

• quality standards and ethics in youth volunteering,

• volunteer motivation, recognition, and retention,

• volunteering as a learning and skills-development process,

• organisational and municipal responsibility in supporting volunteers, and

• the integration of digital tools into volunteer coordination and management.

Sessions were highly participatory and built around case studies, peer exchange, group work, scenario-based exercises, and practical tool development, allowing participants to map existing volunteer systems, identify gaps, and prototype improvements together.

The programme resulted in structured training materials and practical frameworks supporting organisations to move towards more intentional, youth-centred, and sustainable volunteering practices, and contributed to wider Erasmus+ knowledge-sharing and dissemination activities.

YouVol21 was an Erasmus+ funded international project led by PONT Group, focused on rethinking volunteer management systems in cities with strong cultural and civic participation traditions. The project brought together youth workers, volunteers, volunteer coordinators, and city representatives from Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, North Macedonia, Greece, and Slovenia, cities that had held European Youth or Cultural Capital titles.

I was involved across the full lifecycle of the project, contributing to co-design and facilitation of the methodology, coordination of workshops, documentation, and the drafting of the final white paper. I co-facilitated three in-person international workshops held in Plovdiv (Bulgaria), Maribor (Slovenia), and Novi Sad (Serbia), each engaging approximately 15 participants.

The workshops functioned as spaces for peer learning and applied problem-solving, addressing common challenges in volunteer recruitment, coordination, motivation, and retention. Methods included ideation sessions, volunteer journey mapping, case studies, peer exchange, and prototyping, allowing participants to draw on local practice while working towards shared solutions.

Key outputs of the project included:

• a white paper outlining principles and recommendations for effective volunteer management,

• a practical toolkit for organisations and coordinators,

• and the co-design of an app prototype aimed at improving communication, coordination, and recognition within volunteer ecosystems.

The project supported participating cities to exchange best practices while developing adaptable tools that respond to both local contexts and transnational challenges in volunteer engagement. For my practice, YouVol21 strengthened my experience in international facilitation, systems-level thinking, and translating participatory processes into concrete outputs.

Play Cafe was a commissioned participatory research project led by PONT Group and DEIS Romania, exploring young people’s needs, priorities, and visions for youth spaces and services in Baia Mare. The project ran between 2021 and 2023, culminating in the PLAY Cafe Next conference.

I acted as lead researcher, analysing the data from a series of open-access consultations with young people aged 14–35, using a World Café–style participatory method. The consultations focused on themes proposed by young people and explored topics such as access to youth spaces, wellbeing and mental health, leisure and cultural opportunities, participation in decision-making, safety and inclusion, and the quality of relationships with institutions and professionals. Through facilitated group discussions, young people reflected on their everyday experiences, identified gaps in existing provision, and articulated what they needed in order to feel supported, heard, and able to participate meaningfully in community life. The process created space for both critical reflection and forward-looking proposals, grounding strategic recommendations in young people’s lived realities.

Each consultation embedded workshop-style sessions involving professionals and local decision-makers, creating a shared learning space. These sessions provided young participants with an overview of local systems, knowledge, constraints, and ongoing initiatives before inviting them to articulate their needs, priorities, and proposals for the future. This approach supported more informed participation while enabling direct dialogue between young people and stakeholders.

The research culminated in a conference where I presented the findings to young people, youth sector professionals, and policymakers. Outcomes from the project directly informed Baia Mare’s Youth Strategy and contributed to the development of PLAY Cafe Next, a forward-looking framework for youth participation and youth-centred spaces in the city.

Play Cafe stands as a local case study with transferable insights, demonstrating how participatory action research can meaningfully connect youth voice, professional practice, and policy development.

This project was a commissioned impact research study examining the Romanian Youth Capital programme and its effects on local youth ecosystems, participation, volunteering, infrastructure, and policy-making across host cities. The research aimed to understand both the shared outcomes of the programme at national level and the ways impact was shaped by local context.

I worked as an assistant researcher, contributing across the full research process, including desk research, surveys, interviews, qualitative and quantitative analysis, indicator development, and report writing. The study combined empirical data with case-based analysis to identify patterns, typologies of impact, and contextual differences between cities.

The research findings directly informed a strategic redesign of the Romanian Youth Capital programme, leading to a clearer impact framework and the introduction of a capacity-building arm. This new component supports cities that require further development of their youth ecosystems before applying, acknowledging structural inequalities in local readiness and resources.

The project positioned Romanian Youth Capital not only as a title programme, but as a long-term development mechanism for youth participation, local governance, and cross-sector collaboration.

Arts in the Streets was a three-day youth-led arts festival in London, combining music, visual arts, and creative writing. The festival engaged 30 young artists from diverse backgrounds and included a successful collaboration with the Greenwich Youth Justice Team. To support the delivery of the festival, a group of 10 first-time young volunteers took part in a four-week volunteer training programme.

I co-designed and co-facilitated a four-week, in-person training programme (two sessions per week) aimed at preparing volunteers with limited prior experience to confidently support a large-scale public event. Working alongside the other DEIS UK co-founder, I was responsible for session design, facilitation, and coordination across the programme.

The training focused on core themes including teamwork, event organisation, and communication, using participatory methods such as group work, role play, and practical planning exercises. A key strength of the programme was its immediate application: volunteers were able to see the direct results of their work during the festival itself, reinforcing learning through real-time practice.

The programme contributed to the successful delivery of the festival, reflected in positive feedback from participants, partners, and audiences. Volunteers reported increased confidence, a stronger sense of responsibility, and higher expectations for future creative and professional opportunities.

Cities. Youth. Future – Youth after the Pandemic was a national participatory consultation project led by PONT Group (Cluj-Napoca, Romania), delivered across seven cities. The project explored how young people imagine the future of their cities, community life, and decision-making processes in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I designed the participatory futures methodology used across all consultation sessions and delivered a train-the-trainer session online to prepare local facilitators for parallel delivery in multiple cities. In addition, I co-facilitated the consultation workshop in Baia Mare, Romania.

The consultation engaged young people aged 14–35 from diverse backgrounds, with participation ranging from 20 to 40 participants per session. The methodology combined futures thinking, values-based design, and role-play to move beyond extractive consultation and support young people in critically engaging with how local decisions are made.

During the first phase, participants worked in small groups to design their “ideal city”, guided by three core questions:

• What values define this city?

• What opportunities exist for young people?

• What is the most important thing for the community?

Rather than focusing on infrastructure alone, this stage centred values, relationships, and social priorities. Each group then selected a representative to embody the values of their city.

In the second phase, representatives stepped into the role of decision-makers (e.g. mayor or local authority representative) and engaged with another group’s city. They proposed solutions that only partially addressed young people’s needs, intentionally introducing trade-offs and compromises (such as environmental sacrifices or competing priorities) to simulate real governance dynamics.

This negotiation-based role-play enabled young people to experience how power operates at local level, how values are translated or diluted in decision-making, and how participation can become conditional or symbolic. The process supported reflection on agency, democracy, and participation, while providing facilitators with rich insight into young people’s post-pandemic priorities and frustrations.

The findings were synthesised into documents shared with local authorities, contributing to more informed, youth-centred approaches to post-pandemic recovery and urban decision-making.

A series of online workshops for young people, co-created and co-facilitated with a team of youth workers. The sessions focused on developing practical skills in leadership, communication, and teamwork, with an emphasis on participation, reflection, and peer learning.

The workshops used interactive activities, group discussions, and practical exercises to support young people in building confidence, improving communication skills, and working effectively with others in a digital learning environment.

Supported the creation and delivery of a pilot career programme for NEET young people, exploring alternative pathways to employment, learning, and progression. The programme focused on confidence-building, transferable skills, and broadening participants’ understanding of career options beyond traditional routes.

An original creative writing workshop for young people designed to support experimentation, confidence, and creative momentum. The session introduced a wide range of writing tools and prompts to help participants overcome writer’s block, increase productivity, and develop their own writing practice.

The workshop combined practical exercises with technical input and constructive feedback, creating a supportive space for young people to explore different forms, voices, and approaches to writing.