Since its launch in October 2011, the Edgeryders community has grown up to 1200 members, young and not so young, European and non-European altogether, who have posted 480 mission reports and engaged in genuine conversations spread over thousands of comments. All these threaded throughout six themes: MAKING A LIVING, WE, THE PEOPLE, LEARNING, CARING FOR COMMONS, LIVING TOGETHER, and RESILIENCE.
It is time to make sense of it, moving to a synthesis that we can all live with without losing the rich diversity of our stories. The Transition Handbook for Policy Makers, due by the end of 2012, is our concrete tool to make an impact in the policy community, by speaking to individuals in institutions charged with addressing specific issues. The document should also speak directly to young people and other Edgeryders, using key terminology as used by Edgeryders themselves. And we want to build it together, as a community whose collective wisdom can produce something more valuable than any number of experts in a room. Come help with this!
HOW THIS WORKS:
A small team of researchers have been reading, analysing and placing our stories in the context of the current socio-economic background and youth policy. It is like listening to Edgeryders with policy-wise ears and addressing the loopholes. For the community, it makes sense that our projects and initiatives are put into realistic perspectives for scaling and generating change.
All these research papers are being shared online and open to reviews: we call this the validation phase. Young sociologist Rebecca Collins will then synthesize main points from the papers, your comments and the community discussions around them into a first version of the transition handbook.