International Workshop on Youth Organizing

Background

The International Workshop on Youth Organizing is hosted by the Raging Queers collective, a research community that emerged from the European K-Reporters project in Groningen, the Netherlands. This youth-led workshop embodies the participatory principles and ethics of care central to K-Reporters and Raging Queers: placing youth at the heart of knowledge production, event design, and community-building. This workshop will thus function both as an academic event and as a living experiment in participatory ethics of care, disrupting hierarchical knowledge production by positioning queer youth as co-researchers, organizers, and producers of knowledge on children and youth's politics, well-being, and community building.

• Organizing team: Raging Queers Collective.
• RUG Academic staff in the organizing team: Mónica López López and Mijntje ten Brummelaar.

Dates

19, 20 & 21 May 2026

Location

Groningen City Cen​ter (multiple locations)

Free admission

This international workshop is supported by the EU-funded K-Reporters project through the University of Groningen.

Pre-registration

Please register to receive more information about this international workshop.

For whom is this international workshop?

This youth-led international workshop is for three key groups of participants:

1. Community organisers track
   For you if: You’re organizing protests, running youth groups, advocating for LGBTQIA+ rights in schools and communities, or fighting for better policies on issues like trans healthcare or anti-bullying measures. If you are not doing those things yet, but you would like to learn more about your rights and perhaps become a community organizer, then this track is also for you.
   
   This track is also for those working on other justice struggles: for example, coordinating climate strikes or environmental justice campaigns, organizing around anti-racism and migrant justice, or defending human rights in your city or region. And it is for older community organisers as well: if you’re committed to supporting youth leadership, learning how to better engage young people, fostering and participating of intergenerational dialogues in social movements, and creating collaborative spaces across different causes and generations.
2. Research & citizen science track
   For you if: You are a young person participating in or co-leading research projects (like interviewing other youth about their experiences) or a researcher using participatory methods where youth have real power in designing studies, analyzing data, and sharing findings. This track is also for people who are curious about research and want to explore pathways into academia, especially if you have a refugee background.
3. Artists using art as politics track
   For you if: You create art (poetry, murals, music, zines, performance, digital art) to challenge oppression, amplify youth stories, or spark social change or a young artist engaged in art based research used in social sciences, humanities or art, or a young art educator interested in participatory pedagogy or artistic pedagogical methodologies for your research projects involving community building.
   
   *tracks will not completely overlap, you will have the opportunity to follow workshops in different tracks.

 Programme

Tuesday 19 May

15:30-17:00 Welcome drinks and registration. Venue: Fugitive Books

17:00-21:00 Queer Under Occupation: Short-films screening and fundraiser for alQaws. Hosted by Sky and Juan Albá. Venue: MeetLab - Erlenmeyer Room

17:00-17:20 Welcome drinks and fundraiser 

17:20-17:30 Inauguration exhibition by Mo Qasem 

17:30-18:00 Introduction to the evening programme by hosts

18:00-20:15 Films screening and post-film discussion, with midway break

20:15-21:00 Music and fundraiser

Wednesday 20 May

9:00-9:30 Registration with coffee/tea. Venue: MeetLab - Erlenmeyer Room

9:30-10:00 Welcome words by Raging Queers Collective 

10:00-11:00 Keynote. Alchemising Anger, Transmuting Fear and Dispelling Despondence: Recognising the Strength of our Affective Centres for Liberated Futures. Geetha Reddy, Open University UK

11:00-11:30 Break

11:30-12:15 Panel. Between Burning it Down and Occupying the Ashes: A Raging Queers Conversation on Organising, Research and Academia. Raging Queers Collective

12:15-12:30 Spoken word. Palestinians are unknown under the law. Alaa, writer, organizer

12:30-12:45 Spoken word. The Young Artist's Breakings and Imaginings into a New World. Ofure Kitsutsa, Panafrican-British artist

12:45-14:00 Lunch break (packed lunch available at MeetLab)

14:00-15:45 Parallel tracks:

Track Organise (Venue: Fugitive Books):

• Session 1. Care and Resistance: Community Care Practices for LGBTQIA+ youth well-being. Learning from La Paz es Diversa. Eli Verdugo, La Paz es Diversa, Mexico

Track Research (Venue: MeetLab - Erlenmeyer Room):

• Session 1. Trans Girls’ Activism on YouTube and Instagram: A Radical Media Engagement of Mothers and Daughters. Lucas Platero, Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain

Track Art (Venue: Venue: MeetLab - Vijzel Room):

• Session 1. Craftivism as Community. Arlo van Lierop and Iris Rijnsewijn, The Pink Cube, Groningen 

15:45-16:00 Break

16:00-17:45 Parallel tracks:

Track Organise (Venue: Fugitive Books):

• Session 2. Centering Queer Refugee Experiences in Advocacy and Research. Idris Elhassan and Sky

Track Research (Venue: MeetLab - Erlenmeyer):

• Session 2. From Damage to Desire: Participatory Action Research among Marginalised Communities. Mijntje ten Brummelaar and Charvi Arora, University of Groningen

Track Art (Venue: MeetLab - Vijzel Room):

• Session 2a. Intersecting paths: Psychogeography of activism. Claudia Salamanca, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia

Session 2b. ritualhagazussa hexxing 0.1, Michiel Teeuw, Groningen artist

Thursday 21 May

9:30-11:00 Parallel tracks:

Track Organise (Venue: Fugitive Books):

• Session 3. Strategies for Coalition-Building and Traditionally Heterogendered Institutions. Timethius J. Terrell. Artist and scholar-activist, Thailand

Track Research (Venue to be announced):

• Session 3. Groningen’s History of Youth Subcultures and their Social Infrastructures for Community and Activism. Fiona van den Bergh, Alternative Groningen

Track Art (Venue: MeetLab - Vijzel Room):

• Session 3. Bodies in the Public Space: Occupying "the space of appearance". Claudia Salamanca, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia, and Michiel Teeuw, Groningen artist

11:00-11:30 Break

11:30-13:00 Parallel tracks:

Track Organise (Venue: Fugitive Books):

• Session 4. Understanding Intersectionality: The Lived Experience of a Trans Refugee in The Netherlands. Alejandra Ortíz, T-Huis Amsterdam

Track Research (Venue to be announced):

• Session 4. La Madrasseta: Grassroots Organizing with Children and Youth through Intersectional and Popular Education. Mireia Foradada, Autonomous University of Barcelona, and Laia Gisbert, La Madrasseta Barcelona, Catalunya

Track Art (Venue: MeetLab - Vijzel Room):

• Session 4. Zine-making Workshop: Forms of Grassroots Knowledge Production. Alina Achenbach and Charvi Arora, University of Groningen 

13:00-14:30 Lunch break (packed lunch available at all venues!)

14:30 All tracks reconvene at Venue: MeetLab - Erlenmeyer Room

14:30-15:30 Panel. Youth in Gaza: Resistance With Art, Expression and Education. Ahmad Alghariz, Camps Breakerz Crew, Ahmed Matar, Parkour Gaza, and Nour El Alam, Academics for Gaza

15:30-16:00 Bodies in the public space: Occupying "the space of appearance". Claudia Salamanca, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia, and Michiel Teeuw, Groningen artist

16:00-16:30 Break

16:30-17:15 Takeaway messages by Raging Queers Collective

17:15-18:00 Closing act. Dialectics of Erasure: Outcomes of a Participatory Lecture-Performance. Mudar Al-Khufash, University of Groningen