Press start · choose your path
Two paths lead through this forest. Which one calls you?
The experience
The experience · guided practices
Small doses of the Roots of Connection approach, guided on screen. Each visit through "Go for the experience" opens a different one.
Erasmus+ · Youth · 2025–2027
One holistic framework that helps young people grow deeper connections — with themselves, their communities, and the environment.
Wanna know more? Start with the story ↓
Enter the forest
"The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth."African proverb — the seed of this project
An Erasmus+ Youth cooperation partnership between four organisations in Belgium, Spain, Italy and Poland — 2025 to 2027.
Rising anxiety, isolation and screen-fed disconnection are weakening young people's ties with themselves, others and the environment — while the adults around them run out of tools and energy.
Support exists, but it's fragmented. What's missing is one coherent approach that treats emotional, social, cognitive and physical growth as inseparable.
By weaving five proven approaches into one holistic framework: Nonviolent Communication, New Authority/NVR, EcoMindfulness, Social Theatre and game-based learning — grounded in ecopsychology and neuroeducation.
Explore the five approaches ↓For young people aged 12–30 — and for everyone who accompanies them: youth workers, teachers, trainers and families.
Special attention goes to young people with fewer opportunities, in four countries and beyond.
To innovate and create methodologies and materials that pragmatically connect diverse frameworks — strengthening deeper connections with self, community and environment.
A Europe where every young person is embraced by their village: communities that hold, nature that grounds, adults who stay present.
Connection before correction. Cooperation before competition. Presence, playfulness — and everything we make, open and free.
The problem we are solving: disconnection — from oneself, from others, from nature — and the anxiety, conflict and burnout it leaves behind.
Four organisations, each bringing one of the roots: youth care and New Authority from Belgium, nature-based learning and games from Spain, social theatre from Italy, Nonviolent Communication from Poland.
Follow the process meeting by meeting. Photos, minutes and reports are added as we go.
The consortium meets, the holistic framework takes shape and the first materials are sketched.
Pilot sessions in Belgium, Poland, Italy and Spain feed the first big revision of the game and the practices.
Working groups formed: game, curriculum, training programme, communication. The handbook structure is agreed.
The redesigned game travels to youth groups (16–30) in all four countries — six tests per organisation.
The partners meet in Warsaw to review the beta feedback and finalise the training programme.
24 youth workers train for five days in the whole approach. Join us →
One event per country, reaching 200+ people — handing the results to the community, free forever.
Our framework grows from five approaches. Each one is a root; together they hold the whole tree. Pick one to explore.
Marshall Rosenberg · led in the project by Mudita
A language of feelings and needs. NVC trains empathy, honest self-expression and needs-based dialogue — turning conflict into a doorway to connection rather than a wall.
"Every criticism, judgment and diagnosis is a tragic expression of an unmet need."
Haim Omer · led in the project by Elegast
Presence instead of power. More a philosophy than a method: firm boundaries, de-escalation, and relationships that don't break when things get hard.
"I cannot control you — but I can decide what I do, and I will not give up on you."
Nature-based learning · led in the project by Promesas
Nature as co-educator. Grounding, sensory awareness and time outdoors regulate the nervous system and rebuild our felt sense of belonging to a living world.
"To be grounded is to feel the earth beneath your feet and know that you belong."
Augusto Boal's theatre practice · led in the project by Stranaidea
The body knows before the mind does. Theatre historically deals with conflict — Boal's exercises make emotions visible, playable and shareable in a group.
"You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation."
The thread that ties it all together
Play is a safe space for real things. Games turn the other four roots into choices, stories and cooperation — so reflection and transformation happen while having fun.
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."
Underneath it all: ecopsychology and neuroeducation — the science of why connection to nature, safe relationships and play are not luxuries, but the conditions in which young brains grow.
After every storm, rebuilding begins with people who choose to help one another.
A cooperative card game for 2–6 players and a facilitator. A powerful storm has devastated the village: round by round, the group takes on challenges drawn from the five approaches, earns wood, stone, water and energy, weathers unexpected events — and decides together which building to raise next.
Each building embodies a learning goal and grants a new ability. As the village recovers, events grow harder: cooperation, not competition, carries everyone through. Players win or lose as one.
Each round: draw a challenge → earn materials → face an event → rebuild. Every building costs 2 wood · 2 stone · 2 water · 2 energy.
"The village is wounded, but hope is everywhere."
"The easiest repairs are done. The real work begins."
"The village must rely on its resilience."
"The future of the village hangs in the balance."
"You can't control every storm, but you can choose how you face it together."
Observe, reflect, choose with care — look ahead before you act.
Prepare, protect and use resources responsibly — one deliberate choice at a time.
Dialogue and collective decisions help the village face what comes.
Creativity and self-expression energise the whole community.
The game opens the door. The curriculum walks you through it.
A pedagogical toolkit and manual for youth workers, teachers and families — the full holistic framework in practice, written by all four partners and tested with real groups before it reaches you.
Being written now, arriving from autumn 2026 — in five languages, free like everything else.
Why all is connected: the philosophy that ties the five roots into one way of working with young people.
Origins, assumptions and purpose of NVC, New Authority, EcoMindfulness, Social Theatre and play.
Innovative, holistic exercises created and tested through the project — compact and ready to run.
Proposals for combining practices into full workshops and training sessions.
Five days to live the whole approach — and take it home to your organisation.
In April 2027, 24 youth workers from Belgium, Spain, Italy and Poland gather in Poland for the C1 learning mobility: training in the five roots, playing The Village, practising the curriculum — and building their own facilitation practice.
After the course, participants bring the framework home: local workshops in each country put the game and the practices in front of young people and their communities.
A first sketch of the programme so you know what you're signing up for. The final timetable is being designed by Mudita & Elegast.
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9:30–11:00 | ✈ Arrivals & welcome evening | Team building · portraits & objectives | NVC — feelings & needs | EcoMindfulness — grounding walk | Social Theatre — image theatre | Participants facilitate practices | ✈ Departures |
| 11:30–13:30 | The holistic framework — five roots, one tree | NVC — empathy lab | Nature as co-educator (outdoors) | Theatre of the Oppressed | Participants facilitate practices | ||
| 15:30–17:00 | The Village — first play | New Authority — presence & boundaries | Excursion — forest & lake | The Village — full session, rotating facilitators | Bring it home — local action plans | ||
| 17:30–19:30 | Game debrief — how play teaches | New Authority — de-escalation cases | Excursion | The curriculum — building a session plan | Evaluation, Youthpass & future steps | ||
| 19:30–20:00 | Reflection groups | Reflection groups | Reflection groups | Reflection groups | Reflection groups | ||
| Night | Intercultural night | Games night | Campfire & stories | Free night | Farewell dinner |
Everything the project produces lives here, open and free — also on the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform. Use it, print it, share it, translate it.
Two subtitled videos are on the way: the story behind the project and a tutorial for the game. Meanwhile — scroll the photo reel below.
"Going outside was the moment everything clicked — we just wanted more time to explore."
Pilot session · 2026"Less clock, more presence. Regulation needs time — and the game gave us a reason to take it."
Facilitator · pilot sessionReviews from the beta tests across four countries land here after October 2026.
Your group could be one of them →
For free · Print & play
Every deck as a print-ready PDF. The game is being redesigned after testing — new decks land here as they're ready.
The facilitator guide: setup, round structure and tips. A video tutorial joins it soon. Version 3 arrives after the beta tests.
The holistic approach, the background of the five methods, 50+ practices and session plans. Arriving from autumn 2026.
Leaflets, posters and infographics for spreading the approach in your community.
All final materials will be translated. English first; the rest follow as materials are finalised.
Work with a youth group? Test the new version this autumn and shape the final game.
Count us in →Played the game or used a practice? Your feedback goes straight into version 3.
Tell us everything →New decks, the handbook, training dates — hear about it first.
Join the newsletter →The project, post by post — straight from our Instagram.
Meetings, playtests, sneak peeks of the cards and practices — everything the partnership shares lands here first, reposted by all four organisations.
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