The DIY² Lab – Do-it-yourself in International Youth Work – is the English-language edition of a digital exchange format run by IJAB. It emerged during the pandemic and takes place three to four times a year, alternating between German and English. The underlying idea is deliberately low-threshold: to provide a space in which practitioners from around the world can try out new methods, tools and ideas rather than being presented with finished concepts. On 16 July 2026 the focus was on awareness and safeguarding, starting from a practical guiding question: How do I talk to international partner organisations about awareness in joint projects? After each lab, the documentation covers not only the outcomes but also the methodology – so that the formats themselves remain reusable.
Creating a brave space together
The ice-breaker was method and content at the same time. Instead of a conventional round of introductions, all participants answered the question: "What do I need in order to feel seen and safe in this lab?" Their answers formed a shared understanding for the following 90 minutes. What people asked for included patience with different levels of English, room for questions without judgement, time to arrive, and the freedom to switch off the camera or simply listen. This created precisely the setting that a poem by Micky Scottbey Jones captures: there is no such thing as a safe space. What is possible is a brave space, created jointly, and a willingness to work on it side by side.
Example from practice: UK-Germany Youth Summit 2026
The substantive input came from Elena Neu's (IJAB) experience with the UK-Germany Youth Summit 2026. The three-day youth summit in Berlin brought together 70 young adults aged 18 to 25 from the UK and Germany. It was a partnership project carried by two organisations with shared funding and shared responsibility. The awareness and safeguarding concept for the event pursued three main objectives: raising awareness of incidents and problems, supporting prevention through rules of conduct, and creating orientation, transparency and security for targeted intervention in the event of an incident. The concept focused on incidents in the context of discrimination, sexual harassment and violence, abuse of power, mental health and trauma, cyberbullying and intercultural communication.
One key insight from the process is that safeguarding has to be considered from the very start of a partnership. Legal and interpersonal priorities in the partner countries can differ considerably. This affects, among other things, reporting obligations, the way participants are interacted with, and data protection questions. Developing a shared understanding of safeguarding – and of what the term actually covers – right at the outset is therefore important for the entire planning process that follows.
Safeguarding is also a time- and staff-intensive task, and resources need to be budgeted for accordingly. A further important experience is that a transparent protection concept considerably strengthens trust and a sense of security for both participants and the team. Low-threshold access to an on-site awareness team, visible rules of conduct and support services, clear and transparent reporting channels – all of this helps participants and team members to orient themselves and to act confidently if the need arises.
Throughout, one point is central: even with careful planning, it is barely possible to anticipate every individual need. Awareness is not about eliminating every risk of human interaction from the outset; it is about maintaining a clear and open approach to it, setting transparent guardrails, and being honest about where the limits of the organisers' capacity to act lie.
Discuss. Negotiate. Compromise.
In the practical part, participants worked in breakout groups on a concrete scenario: they were planning an international youth programme for 18- to 30-year-olds and had 20 minutes to agree on their three most important priorities for an awareness concept. Discuss. Negotiate. Compromise. This process of negotiation - not the result - was the core of the exercise.
The debrief showed how much the work on terminology already determines what is actually discussed: What does awareness mean, what does safeguarding mean, and where exactly is the difference? In the practical example, awareness stood for an understanding of the issues, safeguarding for concrete recommendations and guardrails for action. Addressing both together makes it easier to get into conversation with partners. Further points from the discussion:
- develop a code of conduct together with everyone involved – including participants;
- determine at an early stage what personal information must and will be treated confidentially and what has to be passed on;
- extend risk assessments to physical safety and to the venue, because not every location is equally safe for all participants;
- involve experts from the region who bring expertise on issues that go beyond the knowledge or capacity of the organisers;
- consistently include power relations as an analytical perspective, in a diversity-sensitive way, rather than adopting good practice without context.
What is still missing from the suitcase for “Safety Land”
Participants named the open questions just as clearly as the success factors: time and space for discussion, a practicable safeguarding toolbox, reality checks, ideas for implementation where no additional staff are available – and more organisations anchoring awareness and safeguarding standards as a fixed part of their quality standards. To close, the group symbolically packed a suitcase for "Safety Land": What am I taking with me, what am I still missing? The answers are at the same time the task at hand for the field.
The next DIY² Lab will be announced on ijab.de.
