“PELSU – Rescue Plan for Young Adults: Game Development-Themed Youth Services in South Ostrobothnia” focuses on game development and digital creativity as tools for strengthening young adults’ paths to educational and employment pathways.
The primary target group of the project consists of 18–29-year-old young adults who are not in employment or education and who are interested in game development and digital creativity. The second target group includes professionals working with the region’s youth.
The project aims to:
- improve the well-being, everyday life management, participation, and education and employment pathways of young people.
- develop the competencies of professionals working with young people, related to games, digital creativity and game development.
- establish collaboration between community college education and social work research, development, and innovation activities to strengthen youth participation and skills recognition.
- strengthen cooperation between stakeholders working with young people.
The project implements game development-themed group activities for 18–29-year-old young people who are not in employment or education. The activities are supported by a multipurpose space for digital creativity, where participants can learn game design and development. This supports the opportunities of young people interested in game development themes to create their individual paths from gamers to digital content creators. Young people’s ability to function in social situations is strengthened by combining individual support and peer support delivered on a digital platform.
The project also provides training for professionals working with young people in the fields of social services, healthcare, employment services and youth work. The training will cover digital gaming, gamification and game-related methods in youth work strengthening the competencies of professionals in the region to use game-based themes to support young adults’ employment and educational pathways.
The project collects and disseminates information on gaming, game development themes and the documented good practices developed during the project.
The project is carried out by Tampere University, Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences, and Seinäjoki Community College (City of Seinäjoki). Key partners include the Wellbeing Services County of South Ostrobothnia, employment regions in South Ostrobothnia, Sedu, and local youth work and third sector organisations. The duration of the project is 1.8.2025-31.12.2027. The project is co-funded by the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+). The total funding granted for the project is 651,721€.
The project operates in Finnish.