Purpose-Based Prototype x YIP Sweden
2020 - ongoing
Sweden & India
Personal Initiative | Community Nurturing | Prototype Development
Inner Dialogue
Action Dialogue
Highlights
YIP, the International Youth Initiative Program, is a social entrepreneurship training for young adults who want to create positive social change in the world. They spend ten months learning about the world, each other, and themselves through a curriculum that engages the head, heart, and will.
Since 2020, The Dialogue Lab has collaborated with YIP by facilitating spaces that cultivate dialogue, purpose, and initiative development. In the first years, the work centred around collective prototyping, where participants co-created projects such as the Initiative Forum — an annual gathering for changemakers in Sweden — and the Light Festival, a community event to celebrate light while entering winter.
In recent years, this collaboration has evolved into the Personal Initiative process. Through The Dialogue Lab tools and methodologies, participants now focus on developing projects that are both personally meaningful and socially relevant, connecting inner purpose with outer action.
What is the International Youth Initiative Program?
The Challenge
The International Youth Initiative Program (YIP) offers a holistic educational journey that promotes global and personal awareness, strengthening young people’s capacity to take initiative in response to today’s complex challenges. Each year, 30–40 participants aged 18 to 28 from across the world live, learn, and work together in an intensive ten-month programme in Sweden and India.
Since 2024, The Dialogue Lab’s role within YIP has been to guide the Personal Initiative process — a three-part journey spread across the year that helps participants clarify Why they act, How they lead, and What they bring into form. The weeks are shaped around three core questions:
Week 1 – Why: Vision and purpose
Week 2 – How: Leadership and embodiment
Week 3 – What: Prototyping and action
This structure enables participants to move from inner clarity to outer creation.
Connecting reflection, dialogue, and practical implementation.
Developing Skills in Leadership, Facilitation, and Dialogue
Throughout the process, participants engage with a range of dialogue-based tools and methods, including:
The Dialogue Lab framework
Vision Quest
Question Café
5x Why
USP (Unique Strength Proposition)
Design for Wiser Action (DFWA)
The Flow Game
Samvād — the Indian tradition of dialogue, explored during the India module
These practices allow participants to explore their questions deeply, listen actively, and turn ideas into prototypes that express their values and creativity.
The Results: Prototypes
Each year, the collaboration results in dozens of emerging initiatives — personal projects rooted in both inner purpose and collective awareness. Participants develop confidence in their leadership, learn to facilitate conversations that matter, and design prototypes that reflect their vision for positive change.
Through this ongoing partnership, The Dialogue Lab continues to support YIP in weaving dialogue as a living practice — where listening becomes the foundation for action.
Currently, The Dialogue Lab is returning for its fifth year of collaboration in 2025/2026, facilitating three dedicated weeks in Sweden and India.
