Sustainable skills for a NEB future, focused on youth
The initiative is about transitioning from a dying, polluting, male-centric economy, to a green & innovative one, where women's role is more visible & youth decide the future. The aim is to develop robotics, financial, sustainability & citizenship skills among students, in the multidisciplinary, intergenerational&participative setting of a Robotics Hub and of various educational & co-design activities, that will further be used to develop an attractive, sustainable and inclusive urban area.
Local
Romania
Petrila Municipality (Hunedoara County, West Development Region, Romania)
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organization, in partnership with other organisations
Name of the organisation(s): ”Constantin Brâncuși” Technological College Type of organisation: Other public institution First name of representative: Cecilia Last name of representative: Mitran Gender: Female Nationality: Romania If relevant, please select your other nationality: Romania Function: Director Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Republicii, 196 No Town: Petrila Postal code: 335800 Country: Romania Direct Tel:+40 785 216 180 E-mail:brancusi_petrila@yahoo.com Website:https://liceupetrila.ro
The initiative builds on the experience of organizing 4 events dedicated to robotics (Robotics Valley) in Petrila's coal mine, where high school students interested in robotics were involved in various activities. The 2022 edition also inaugurated a mural painting in Petrila, realized by a famous Romanian street artist. A financial education event was also organized in Jan. 2023 with tens of students & young entrepreneurs. The aim is to capitalize the interest in robotics & financial education shown so far by high school students & upscale their multidisciplinary skills for the benefit of the local community (undergoing a complex transition).
Tangible component:depolluting, renovating, repurposing a building from the former mine into a Robotics HUB. This facility is part of an Urban Rehabilitation Master Plan that was the result of a large co-design process & aims to make the town more attractive to existing & future inhabitants & to showcase how the core values of NEB perfectly fit the revitalization of a shrinking mono-industrial town. The future Robotics HUB will be a classroom-workshop to be used by students & the community for learning, making, exploring & sharing.
Intangible component:developing NEB skills, esp.related to sustainability, aligned to GreenComp framework, but also related to inclusive design, quality of experience beyond functionality, entrepreneurship & financial education skills that can be applied in designing a new generation of robots. The solutions conceived by students with the skills acquired will better address societal demands related to circularity, energy efficiency, design for all, accessibility, affordability. Intergenerational activities are planned with University of Petroșani (specialized in engineering & IT)&local NGOs.
For the solutions&robots designed by students to meet aesthetic, sustainability & inclusive needs of the local community, the local administration & the NGOs will involve them in the decision-making process
skills
robotics
entrepreneurship
design
sustainability
As the only Technological College in Jiu Valley to support new tech activities in a city that faces a just transition, our objective is to create sustainability skills for local highschoolers, that will contribute in shifting the coal-based industry to an environmentally-and-climate friendly economy. In this aim, exemplary items cover already undertaken achievements&future plans(esp. for 2023-2024).
Sustainability to date:
TANGIBLE ITEMS:Every organized event was minimally polluting&minimally invasive (both as energy consumption&waste production). 2 of 4 Robotics Valley editions were organized in Petrila Mine, from the desire to give a new meaning & fresh breath to the buildings left in disrepair but have a huge repurposing potential. Even some robots created by the student teams were built with sustainability in mind (the air quality measurement kit)
INTANGIBLE ITEMS:Sustainability skills acquired over time by students. The knowledge generated through the activities undertaken in robotics & financial education, plus connections that students made by merging knowledge pieces led to gaining per se sustainability skills: valuing sustainability, systems, critical & exploratory thinking, collective action & individual initiative. The local context (their hometown’s just transition) organically instilled in the youngsters skills of supporting fairness, problem framing, futures literacy, adaptability
Sustainability in the future:
TANGIBLE ITEMS:The Robotics Hub to be created by repurposing some of Petrila Mine’s spaces is itself a sustainable intervention. More, it will be built based on principles as nZEB, circularity, positive energy, recycling (during both construction & use) plus minimum footprint on the environment & climate
INTANGIBLE ITEMS:The activities planned esp. for 2023-2024 will start from the students' need to acquire sustainability skills that they currently lack (mainly promoting nature, political agency) &to consolidate the already accumulated ones
Petrila is a decaying city: neglected local buildings (mostly communist) complete the desolating landscape born around the closed, degrading mine. The Technical College doesn’t have the position to change city's appearance, but has the objective to create a positive experience for students through the organized activities. In future, aesthetics objectives will be materialized in the new Robotics Hub (to be set up in the former mine). Exemplary highlights:
AESTHETICS NOW: Until now, aesthetics were reflected within Robotics Valley events, where focus fell on generating positive emotions both for the robotics teams and other participants, so that the pleasant environment encouraged even stronger connections. Events’ places ensured meaningful experiences through: public spaces (Children’s Park, where technology harmoniously combined with nature, gathering the local community around students) and educational ones that received new functionalities (Local Library's reading room, a soul place for everything pupil and student but which, through robotics workshops, acquired new meanings), Petrila Mine (besides the value given by repurposing this industrial heritage through informal education, magic came by involving students and other local volunteers in preparing and arranging the spaces for Robotics Valley’s editions). Robotics Valley events did not limit to robotics teams’ presentations, but, in addition to all activities (workshops, debates, etc.), they managed to bring together culture and technology (eg inaugurating the mural created by Obie Platon-one of most famous national urban artists- on the wall of Petrila Mine’s Fan Station)
AESTHETICS IN THE FUTURE:Aesthetics will be reflected through its integration in the Robotics Hub (when implementing the masterplan) and in designs that students will create for new robots to be developed in 2023-2024 workshops: robots as (1)manifestations of attractive functionality & (2)visual, not only intellectual stimulation
Our objective is to ensure inclusion for all youth, regardles of their background. We see the entire initiative as exemplary in itself: it places highschool students (girls and boys, equally) at the center of Petrila's future by offering them chances for informal learning and valuable connections (free and open to any interested youngster); it attracts around youth a whole community of locals, volunteers, entrepreneurs and professionals.
The Technological College, together with NGOs’ volunteers and local entities, work hard to provide students with all necessary premises to gain new NEB skills. The ecosystem formed around our young girls and boys offers them free workspaces, where to feel safe and comfortable (at school, at NGOs’ headquarters, in nature, including the mining site under supervision), working materials & collaboration opportunities (other high schools, the local ecosystem, outside experts - tech, cultural, financial & public sectors, even embassies). All activities are open to any young person who wants to learn, regardless of gender, background, condition: we provide to all of them the opportunity to learn sustainability skills, because all of them are part of Petrila's NEB future and we carefully support girls in capitalizing available opportunities.
We worked to include students in intergenerational initiatives, where to absorb diverse knowledge from discussion/work partners of all ages, genders and domains. This desire started from the need to reach as many knowledge fields as possible (entrepreneurship, NGO, science, arts&culture, finance) besides focusing on robotics & financial education. Only by merging all this knowledge we could teach true sustainability skills, which in turn are sustainable. No stand-alone competence can generate a sustainability skill as defined in the GreenComp: we aim to harmoniously combine different information to lead to a young generation able to master sustainability skills as a new societal model in Petrila.
During Ep. Commission's visit to Petrila (oct.2022), Elisa Ferreira, Ep. Commissioner for Cohesion&Reform, stated that "It is encouraging to see this involvement of the community [..]. It is important to work together to create a better future for Jiu Valley (n.r. just transition area of which Petrila is a part). There is potential here&it's important to make sure people don't have to leave the area." The College understood this years ago, when it started its pursuit through robotics workshops (expanded this year through the first financial education workshop). Our attention, as an educational structure, falls on young people: keep them close to their home&give them wings towards a NEB future at home, through (in)formal educational support. This is essential also for our girls: we want them to become agents of change in their community¬ to limit their role to mothers/housewives (as local history has proven so far). We realized that sustainability skills are the only ones through which our youth can become an active part of Petrila’s beautiful, inclusive&sustainable future. Thus, we adapted them to our own possibilities&background. This initiative is with&about our students’ (in)formal training as NEB heroes of our community. Thus, they were involved in workshops, activities, events not only as beneficiaries but as co-organizers, from beginning&onward. The impact upon them is huge: they’ve started to change their perspective on the potential that the Jiu Valley’s future can have, thanks to them&their participation. The impact comes from their feedback: they involve in organizing Robotics Valley, participate at workshops (the most important examples are co-designing the Robotics Hub & the financial education workshop, which filled the library room with youth)&dedicate own time to these ambitions (eg many students already test stock market investment platforms, think of new robot designs, volunteer in local NGOs&want to open own businesses/NGOs in Jiu Valley).
The initiative organically includes participatory processes (students are engaged in co-design and co-implementation together with residents, NGOs, companies, educational structures, public administration and dozens of professionals), multi-level engagement (we attract around students many actors that come from outside Petrila’s and Romania’s borders) and transdisciplinary approaches (from robotics, technologies and IT to investments, funding, art, culture, sports).
The initiative started from Constantin Brancusi Technical College’s students, who are passionate about robotics and self-taught in the field. Thus, we decided to support them not only through our college, but through a pool of colleagues, schools, families, friends, neighbors and especially experts (NGOs, entrepreneurs, companies, public administration, artists, trainers) whom we managed to reach. We have support from Planeta Petrila Association, which even includes urban planners, architects and artists. Petrosani University created partnerships with our local students, to enhance and propel their interest in robotics and tech (as it aims to get accreditation for a new specialization degree in the field). Students also received support from AHK Romania (Romanian-German Chamber of Commerce), Timișoara Community Foundation and the French Embassy.
Regarding the Urban Renewal Masterplan, which includes the construction of a Robotics Hub in the former mine for students to develop their projects, dozens of different experts were involved, not only from Petrila and Jiu Valley, but also from Romania and abroad: from professionals (eg architecture) and artists to public administration (City & County Council), ministries (Ministry of Investments and Ep. Projects), European Commission and World Bank (through the functionalareas.eu project), local NGOs. The Hub started from our students’ ambitions, who were consulted, through discussions facilitated by local NGOs, regarding how the Hub should look and function.
Our initiative is a knowledge mix generated by all stakeholders working in small&large teams (according to each activity), but always mixed as componence and voluntarily coordinated:
Organizing Robotics Valley brought together diverse know-how: robotics&engineering (mechanical/electrical engineering, computer science), IT/tech (AI/ML), education (the college & other regional/national schools, supported their students in their pursuits), youth development (teachers and volunteers tested their expertise in pedagogy & personal/professional development), event planning&management (everyone's logistics efforts, eg. preparing locations, organizing demos/competitions), marketing/communication (students & the local ecosystem promoted the festival, attracting participants/attendees), community engagement (involving the community in our movement), art/culture (artists who committed to demonstrate, during events, how techn & art work together to give new flames of hope to those needing it the most)
Running robotics workshops required a mix between tech (robotics, engineering, IT), pedagogical (maintaining students' interest/love for activities) & social (see how, acc. to anthropology, a project that helps students on individual level can lead to changes in the collective mentality) knowledge
Organizing the 1st financial education workshop combined community development & event organizing with knowledge in finance & economics (stock market investments, funding, entrepreneurship)
Developing the Robotics Hub component of the Urban Renewal Masterplan was a huge exercise of directing individual knowledge in a collective product: urban planning, architecture, law, economics, engineering, RDI & academic know-how, sociology, environment, climate, etc. This knowledge pool is owed to dozens of local&(inter)national experts involved through co-design sessions
Other related initiatives required networking&market research, for attracting external contributors to our internal endeavor.
Initiative’s innovative character reaches several perspectives:
1.Stakeholders’ lens:
COLLEGE:although there are many high schools that support students’robotics teams, there are very few schools that manage to gather so much energy around the teams. Usually, schools attract representatives from private companies/public authorities to praise/reward students, but we managed to bring an entire local community, along with a handful of external actors around students
STUDENTS:although there are lots of initiatives that involve students in the community / support them on various levels(eg gaining new skills), these usually aim at specific, one-time-only interventions/skills. Our action is not a mere project, but a local reform of placing students as a main energy in the core of the green, inclusive and sustainable revival of our local community, based on new sustainability skills
LOCAL COMMUNITY:students are usually supported by family/ companies within CSR campaigns/public administrations needing to get closer to the community. Our effort is not a question of support, but a genuine collaboration and mutual exchange:local adults(entrepreneurs, decision-makers, NGOs,various experts) not only support the youngsters, but are open to collaborating with them.
2.NEB values:
AESTHETICS:future Robotics Hub(freshly secured through official public commitment) in the former coal mine(currently abandoned)
SUSTAINABILITY:2023-24 will bring workshops focused on creating sustainable robots(both as a structure/materials and as functionality) & learning new sustainability skills(political agency&promoting nature)
INCLUSION:addressing the needs of the territory in an unusual way, from children to adults and not through adults for children
3.Typology:
PROCESS:lifelong learning starting from students but involving all ages around these young people
PRODUCT:Petrila's Phoenix generation, reborn from the ashes of a harsh industrial decline by gaining the latest NEB-inspired skills
Given the project’s clear components, we believe that all of them could (and should, given the massive enthusiasm we constantly receive from students) be transferred to other places & beneficiaries, either through integrated concepts (adapted to local specifics), or as independent elements. Thus, replication in any other school, community or city can cover:
The founding vision (sustainable skills=sustainable youth=sustainable future): building sustainability skills by fostering the knowledge of interest (robotics) & of need (financial education) for the young people who will dictate the future, so as to guide them towards creating a NEB future for a community in danger of losing its identity & trust (in addition to the attractiveness that is constantly being lost, especially concerning the youth)
The used approach (complementarity for impactful unity): on one hand, complementing basic competences acquired through formal education with currently trending abilities (robotics, investments, attracting funding) built through informal learning; on the other hand, different generations, with different levels of training (students & volunteers through the robotics activities, students & professionals through the financial education workshop) collaborating for common pursuits
The model for organizing the Robotics Valley & the financial education workshop: both unique, because both target simultaneously high school students, student members of local NGOs & youngsters interested in becoming future entrepreneurs/investors, experienced & aspiring businessmen, mature & new NGOs, the simple population & the experts, the community & the public administration, in a special exercise of bringing near youth many different generations, experiences, professions, ambitions & needs, by focusing on new skills
Replication is even more suitable for just transition regions (esp. cities facing the closure of coal mines & the implicit restructuring of the economy & society as a whole).
The methodology aims to generate sustainability skills in the local just transition context, through integrated informal education interventions: locally-adapted training for high school students, to show them how to prosper at home by adopting NEB values.
Petrila’s Technical College offers classical, dual&professional high school education programmes, but because Petrila is a deprived, unattractive city (with young people wanting to leave due to the harsh transition process&the lack of opportunities), we realized that our educational offer is not enough to prepare an adaptable&resilient youth. Thus, we have a 7-principles methodology:
-SUPPLEMENT basic competences with COMPLEMENTARY skills anchored in European megatrends, which will generate SUSTAINABILITY MINDSETS (knowledge, skills & attitudes) for high school students
-educational institution as coordinator, COLLABORATING with students as beneficiaries (but also CO-ORGANISERS/volunteers)&other actors as SUPPORTERS/catalysts
-INFORMAL EDUCATION, through workshops whose frequency/topics depend on students’ determination/needs & where learning doesn’t limit to school’s grounds, opening to public spaces where teachers, students, volunteers become learning partners
-LIFELONG LEARNING, where merging basic knowledge & modern skills leads to mentality changes&to rediscovering home’s potential(due to the fresh knowledge that will lead to students’ determination to give back, by contributing to Petrila’s NEB future)
-PRIORITY ON STUDENTS and their home, regardless of their background: those needing the strongest support in the urgent context of Petrila’s just transition but also whom Petrila needs most in the process
-CARE FOR GIRLS as future catalysts of change, innovation&sustainability, eliminating historically-imposed preconceptions
-OPENNESS TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD: organizing events, participating in competitions&involving in actions where students can prove their contribution to community’s well-being&welfare
The initiative addresses the following challenges:
Education - by making the educational process more relevant to the labor market and societal demands. High school students that will learn more about financial investment or sustainability and experience with robots and digital tools from an early age will be more prepared for the future of jobs and will be able to find innovative solutions for the just transition of their town
Poverty - in the sense that most of the students come from families that experience unemployment and low incomes after the decline of mining, will benefit from practical / DIY training that will allow them to find better jobs or even to open own business/NGOs
Climate change: especially by encouraging sustainability training, awareness and behaviors among students, renovating the old buildings of Petrila Mine in line with the nZEB standards and creating robots that can contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation
Aging: by investing in high school students (the ones needing urgent help) and cultivating their sense of belonging and active implication in the decision-making process, the initiative envisages a higher rate of local retention of young graduates that can reinvigorate the community. Also, the robots developed by them can improve the quality of life for senior members of the community
Gender balance: robotics, investments and entrepreneurship are areas that are still associated with men, at least in small urban communities. The initiative is determined to change this perception by providing access to technology and financial education also to young women
Democratization: by capitalizing the skills acquired by the students for the general well being of the local community, the initiative also envisages their involvement in the decision making. A first example is their involvement in imagining how the perfect Robotics Hub would look like
This initiative is still a work in progress: in the last 4 years we focused on generating long-term benefits for students, as our true champions. Although the project is not completed (a continuous process), we achieved:
4 robotics teams within the Technical College(10-15 students/team), where students create diverse robots (eg air quality measurement kit)
Robotics Valley event (4 editions - 2019-2022; 2100 participants) dedicated to youth & to others with whom youngsters can connect intergenerationally through the common curiosity for robots: IT&tech talks, speeches, debates, guided tours, hackathons, demos, workshops. Robotics Valley also ensures connections with other robotics teams & experts in digitization/robotics, plus artists
Collaborations with other schools to exchange equipment/materials/knowledge
Workshops for students(eg, computer graphics, 3D printing)
First financial education event ever organized in the Jiu Valley(125 onsite&online participants), where students, young volunteers & entrepreneurs learned from professionals & from each other about stock investments, entrepreneurship&NGO financing (the event was promoted national TV channels)
Participation in 6 national robotics competitions
Participation in local & national intergenerational&multidisciplinary events (eg Vibrant Jiu Valley, Climate Action Day)
Partnerships between student teams&local & even international NGOs (eg, Bankwatch) through which students learned the power of collaboration
Connections with potential bodies that can support students’ work (AHK Romania, France's Embassy, Timisoara Community Foundation)
Promotion on TV (eg, Digi TV), online (eg, Recorder) and printed media
Partnership with local actors&public administration, through which a Robotics Hub was included in the Urban Renewal Masterplan Petrila Cultural Exploitation (by reconverting the mine’s former ventilation station)
The attached Development Plan contains the initiatives foreseen for the future (2023-24)
The Initiative pioneers the application of GreenComp in our just transition town, contributing to the 4 competence areas:
-embodying sustainability values:high-school students will learnin activities how to value sustainability, support fairness&promote nature by becoming aware and accepting the needs of colleagues& community, explore their own compatibility with sustainability values, interact with other generations, acknowledge the importance of equity and justice both for their generation and for others, learn about other species, nature&ecosystems. We will also organize outdoor activities.
-embracing complexity in sustainability:the workshops will experiment with how to look at a given problem of the town from a 360-degree angle, as part of an ecosystem and consider the broader context when making a decision, assess different information/arguments and make assumptions, look at the impact of different individual/collective backgrounds that are influencing their decision, define challenges as sustainability problems and find suitable solutions either to prevent, mitigate or adapt to them. To facilitate learning, the local administration, entrepreneurs&activists will be also invited to activities.
-envisioning sustainable futures:workshops will develop the necessary skills to imagine a sustainable future for the local community and define and implement alternative solutions to achieve that envisaged reality, manage and adapt to complex situations of uncertainty/risk without giving up, have a multidisciplinary approach, be creative and experiment with innovative materials, methods/processes.
-acting for sustainability:one of our objectives is for students to learn how to be closely involved in facilitating our community's local transition, by exploring their individual and collective potential to act for change, but also by constantly demanding political responsibility and accountability for future decisions that impact their town.
