In my previous post I talked about Edgeryders mission of re-bridging individuals and institutions, of creating a space where young Europeans’ voices are heard and valued, and transformed into an instrument that speaks the language of policy makers. Team members are often faced with the inevitable question from audiences where they present Edgeryders: how will you go about transforming people’s voice into concrete policy issues?
Let’s see how: would you like to see your personal transition challenges become policy recommendations? We suggest an exercise in which content uploaded on the platform is carefully read and formulated in policy terms, so as to show how individual input can be conducive to policy change.
The Edgeryders team in Strasbourg offers to draft a document and afterwards subject it to validation by the community. All members will be able to edit it and suggest other points which seem valid based on their own reading of transition. The idea is to make sure recommendations respond and are sensible to the points underlined by Edgeryders in their conversations on the platform.
Transition stories and interactions around them are already very rich in ideas, so we will extract main points from there, considering content generated so far, including this week. There are two ways in which you, community members and potential Edgeryders, can contribute with meaningful content: by sharing your story and by reacting to others.
- If you haven’t written your story yet, here’s an opportunity to do so and see the benefits in a week’s time. Giving a clear and concise description of who you are and what you do or would like to do is required in many different contexts and it's something many Edgeryders find difficult. Sometimes it's helpful to have others look at it and ask questions to help us "find" our story, to discover some things we might have missed or were unaware of. It's like therapy, but peer to peer and free of charge :) “Share your Ryde” mission is available here and contains instructions on how to think of your story so that it's easier to put it in writing.
- Second, and especially if you already completed this mission, you can make a point by leaving comments to what others have said about their own transition; this way you can either relate to their experience and validate it, or you can argue differently; you can also make an additional point so that the story is more informative for future policy. These interactions are particularly relevant because they aggregate stories or open the floor for debates - a sign of an ongoing, collaborative effort in putting forward good proposals for change. If you haven't signed up already you can do it here.
The more you participate at this stage, either by posting your story or commenting on others, the richer this exercise will turn out, and eventually the more substantive Edgeryders’ contribution will be in the policy change process.