On 11 October, I hosted in Bucharest my first INTERFACED session with a group of 13 young people from small towns and rural areas across Romania.
For two hours, we explored the idea of participation, what it means, where it happens, and how it first appeared in their lives.
I started the session with a short presentation of the INTERFACED platform, explaining its purpose and how it invites participants to reflect on their experiences of participation. After that, for about 40 minutes, we worked on an exercise called Memory Map: My First Civic Spark.
The goal of this activity was to help participants reconnect with their earliest or most formative memories related to civic life, moments when they first took action, stood up for something, or felt part of a collective change. Using pen and paper, each participant created a personal map, image or illustration titled My First Civic Spark, where they noted when and where that moment happened, who was involved, what they did, and how it felt.
Everyone was encouraged to express themselves freely, through drawings, words, short timelines, or visual notes. The activity concluded with small group sharing, where participants talked about the emotions or themes that emerged. Many of the stories went back to the pandemic, a time that shaped how they think about community, empathy, and responsibility.
Later, we worked on two prompts created on the INTERFACED platform and translated into Romanian especially for this Bootcamp session. Because we experienced some technical issues, I decided to ask participants to write their reflections on their phones and send them to me directly. Once these issues are fixed, they will upload their answers on the platform.
In the feedback session at the end of the Bootcamp, almost all participants mentioned the INTERFACED activity, and especially the Memory Map, as one of their favorite moments. They said it helped them understand their own role in civic life and connect with one another in a more authentic way.
For me, this session confirmed how much we need spaces where participation feels real and human, not abstract.
