Decidim and Legislative Theatre: Co-Creating Civic Spaces with Young People

On February 15th, I was in Birmingham for a collaborative session on Decidim with young people, alongside a team of incredible Legislative Theatre (LT) facilitators. This session was an exciting opportunity to explore digital participatory tools in conjunction with creative methodologies for civic engagement.

We met at 12:30 pm for lunch and then engaged in a four-hour session (1–5 pm) with the youth from West Midlands. I introduced Decidim—a platform for participatory democracy—and guided them through participatory spaces and the activities they could conduct online with them. Before this process, we redesigned Decidim: The Game by giving the cards a brand-new look to enhance engagement and usability. Hopefully, our fresh design sparked enthusiasm among participants to make the experience even more accessible and easy.

Sam, Lee, and Dena and Sonia were amazing facilitators as we worked through various theatre activities. Their expertise and energy helped seamlessly weave together theatre exercises and civic engagement. The youth participants were bright, kind, and super engaging, bringing thoughtful insights and a dynamic presence to the session. Their enthusiasm and curiosity made for rich discussions and creative explorations of democratic participation.

The session also accommodated ongoing work on play development, and we dedicated time towards the end for research activities and reflections led by Dena.

This collaboration was a valuable moment to merge participatory technology with theatrical practices, enabling young people to begin designing their own online civic spaces.