Future Builders: Teach the Future Playbook gifted to youth at the European Commission
- Lourdes Rodriguez
- Sep 21, 2025
- 3 min read
What if, instead of preparing young people only to adapt to tomorrow, we gave them the tools to shape it? This question was at the heart of a recent European Commission event, where children and youth gathered for the General Assembly of the EU Child Participation Platform. At this important gathering, Commissioner Glenn Micallef, European Commissioner for Intergenerational Fairness, Youth, Culture and Sport, handed each young participant the Futures Thinking Playbook developed by Teach the Future, a symbolic and practical step towards equipping the next generation with futures literacy skills.
Commissioner Micallef: championing intergenerational fairness
Commissioner Micallef is the first EU Commissioner with a dedicated mandate for intergenerational fairness. His mission is clear: “We must not leave any generation behind.” His portfolio calls for policies that strengthen trust between generations, create equal opportunities, and ensure that future generations are represented in decisions made today.
The Playbook handover reflects this commitment. As Commissioner Micallef has explained, the forthcoming EU Strategy on Intergenerational Fairness seeks to ensure that the rights and interests of both present and future generations are embedded in European policymaking. By placing the Playbook in the hands of young people, the Commission underlines that futures literacy is not a distant concept, but a concrete tool for youth participation and empowerment.
Futures literacy as a vital competence
The European Commission, together with UNESCO, recognises futures literacy as one of the essential skills for the 21st century. Far from predicting what will come, it is about learning to think ahead, question assumptions, and imagine multiple possibilities. These abilities help young people anticipate change, explore new solutions, and build resilience in an uncertain world. This vision is also embedded in the GreenComp framework, the European sustainability competence model, where futures literacy is explicitly included under “envisioning sustainable futures” alongside adaptability and exploratory thinking. By positioning it within both education and sustainability, Europe affirms that preparing for the future also means cultivating the imagination and agency to shape it.
The Playbook: imagination and action
At the General Assembly, Commissioner Micallef personally handed a Futures Thinking Playbook to every child. Developed by Teach the Future, the Playbook is an invitation to play, dream, and design what comes next, transforming visions into ideas that can lead to action. It also encourages young people to carry the conversation forward, sharing these skills with their peers, teachers, and schools so that futures literacy becomes a shared practice within classrooms and communities.
Building a fairer Europe together
For more than a decade, Teach the Future has worked to bring futures literacy into education worldwide. The Playbook’s presence at the European Commission’s Child Participation Platform marks an important recognition of this mission: creating fair and sustainable futures requires the voices, creativity, and agency of young people.
As Commissioner Micallef’s gesture showed, young people are not only tomorrow’s leaders, they are today’s future builders.
By embedding futures literacy into education and policy, Europe is taking steps to ensure that the next generation has both the skills and the confidence to co-create what comes next.
Take action
The Futures Thinking Playbook given to young people at the European Commission shows how powerful these skills can be when placed in the hands of youth. This is just the beginning.
Futures literacy grows stronger when it is shared, practiced, and supported across schools, communities, and policy. To continue building this capacity, Teach the Future has developed resources such as FutureWISE curriculum, which can be used to bring futures thinking into learning environments to help young people and educators explore alternatives, challenge assumptions, and strengthen their ability to shape what comes next.
