Abstract:

As youngsters are aware that Internet and social networks enable them to search contents generated by them in order to build stronger relationships between friends, we believe that this participatory impulse, naturally associated with human existence as social beings, is being transformed into a greater active involvement in their communities, becoming proactive youngsters that seek to participate actively in social issues, such as public protests and gatherings, or social and political movements and struggles, among others. These relevant aspects are enabling youngsters in exercising power over their lives by being skilled, critically aware, and active in creating community change. They feel that their active participation can make a real impact on society and especially on communities at risk.

This paper aims to present the second phase of an ongoing research project entitled Kabua, a Social Action Platform for youngsters in Catalonia in which we initially pretend to identify the main motivations of youngsters to actively participate in society through social networks, which are the main social issues of their interest and which is the expected impact on their communities or in society derived from their ideas or proposals for change. Kabua has engaged youngsters from the entire Autonomous Community of Catalonia in a video contest to develop proposals on how to fight poverty, how to promote children's rights, how to eradicate violence or how to reduce discrimination against disabled people. We are making content analysis of the youngsters’ videos, an on-line survey and the open comments made by youngsters inside the Kabua Platform and its social networks in Facebook and Twitter. We strongly believe that deeper understanding of the social and cultural factors related to participation in social technologies is needed for youth populations.

Kabua initially was carried out between 2010 – 2014 within the framework of a European project for the transfer of innovation (E-TFU) associating 5 European cities, with the purpose to develop powerlabs for empowering youngsters through arts and new media, using participatory and critical action-research (Pozos, Essomba, Guardiola, Tarrès, 2013; Tarrès, Pozos, Hillaert, 2014; Tirions, Pozos, & Pennings, 2012). From 2014 to date, Kabua has evolved in a Social Action Platform with the aim of providing an innovative educational virtual community for youngsters between the ages of 12-18, as well as a mobile APP, in order to develop their empowering processes to become transforming agents of their own reality. This social network not only serves as a resource center with reflective materials and social tools for youngsters involving social relevant contents, but as a liaison between youth voices and their social proposals, with the social organizations potentially capable to carry out youngsters’ social projects, and else, a liaison between educators and researchers, because we believe that research groups in socio-educational issues may be interested in monitoring the various activities we offer on the platform, which could be used as a laboratory of ideas for social change. The ultimate purpose of the Kabua Project is to promote positive youth activism and empowerment throughout critical reflection.

Keywords:

Youth activism, social change, youth empowerment, social networks, active participation.