On June 16th, the YoPA Soweto team officially launched the intervention phase after successfully reaching their recruitment target of 200+ adolescents!
Targeting youth aged 12–18 from across Soweto, the team welcomed participants for their very first session at the Jabulani Youth Centre. The energy was high, and the enthusiasm even higher — the young participants are already showing strong engagement and excitement about being part of this journey.
This marks a major milestone for YoPA Soweto, as they move forward in co-creating healthier futures with local youth!
From May 9th to June 30th, 15 enthusiastic teenagers from Algueirão-Mem Martins parish, in the municipality of Sintra, Portugal, engaged in the first YoPA spin-off for a dynamic co-creation process.
Following the original YoPA protocol, the project combined participatory methods, systems thinking, and local knowledge to explore the factors that influence young people’s health and daily activity.
Over 14 interactive sessions facilitated by local PhD students from Lusófona University, the teens engaged in:
Neighbourhood walks and youth-led interviews
Systems mapping of barriers and opportunities for physical activity
Creative activities like storytelling, games, and mini-pitches
Solution-building in small groups
And a big finale with ice cream, certificates, and shared reflections! 🍦🎉
With support from local stakeholders, the Phase 1 of co-creations sessions had very positive feedback and will inspire the next steps towards creating a tailored intervention for a healthier community.
This spin-off represents an important step in developing the original YoPA protocol into different sites and applying participatory research to empower youth to become co-researchers, change-makers, and advocates for better urban health.
On July 17th, YoPA and its spin-off was presented in the internal scientific event CIDEFES Day, for around 50 researchers in the field of Sports, Physical Education, Physical Activity, Exercise and Health.
If you want to know more about the community and partners of YoPA Portugal and see more pictures, take a look at this page.
On April 28th, the YoPA Soweto team hosted a vibrant recruitment event at the Jabulani Safe-Hub, welcoming youth aged 12–18, their parents, and key community stakeholders. The session offered an open platform for families to engage directly with the team, ask questions about the intervention, and learn more about YoPA’s goals, with the objective to register youth to be part of the next phase of the project. ✨
Parents had the opportunity to sign consent forms, officially welcoming a new group of young participants. The energy was high, the conversations meaningful — and this marks another important step toward community-driven change!
In January, the YoPA Amsterdam team kickstarted the 2025 co-creation process by welcoming new participants into the Action Team.
The group, guided by facilitators from Amsterdam UMC, Jesse Vargas and Leto Demetriadou, learned about the research that was conducted by previous participants, and shared their own perspectives on these findings.
Through member-checking, we can continuously develop insights that are relevant to the local context together with our adolescent co-researchers! 💡
