Learning by Doing: Change Making & Placemaking

The Healthy Future education initiative offers a powerful response to the call for meaningful youth involvement. Through innovative electives like Change Making: Co-Creating Healthy Future, students don’t just learn about public health—they actively shape it. Working side by side with professionals, students explore urgent questions such as:

• What if healthy food were the easy choice?
• What if communities, not hospitals, were the centre of healthcare?
• What if technology truly contributed to vitality?

Using real-world interventions and the transition cycle, students and societal partners collaborate on change experiments that rethink the structures shaping our health systems. This is co-learning in action, with joint vision-making, hands-on practice, and deep personal reflection at its core.

Similarly, in the Placemaking UvA programme, students co-create campus improvements with local stakeholders, building lasting connections between academia and society. These efforts reflect the EUPHW’s call for youth leadership, community-driven solutions, and cross-sector collaboration.

Building a More Inclusive and Resilient Future

At the heart of both EUPHW2025 and Healthy Future is a shared belief: that a more inclusive, resilient, and forward-thinking health system must be built with and by the next generation. By equipping students with the tools to innovate, experiment, and collaborate, initiatives like Change Making and Placemaking are already laying the foundation for the future public health landscape.

Let’s not just talk about the importance of youth in public health—let’s continue to empower them to lead it.