WAVES – Onde d'Italia was the first national network created to connect youth-led socio-cultural initiatives across Italy.

The project was launched in 2021 with the aim of making visible a widespread but often overlooked phenomenon: thousands of young people who, every day, promote cultural, social, and territorial initiatives within their communities.

WAVES sought to map, connect, and coordinate these initiatives, fostering the exchange of skills and experiences, strengthening a national community of youth organisations, and promoting dialogue with institutions working on youth, cultural, and social policies.

Over the course of the project, the network involved more than 50 youth organisations across Italy, working along three main lines of action: Research, to empirically investigate youth socio-cultural activism through participatory mapping; Community building, to encourage the exchange of ideas, practices, and collaborations; and Advocacy, to bring national visibility to youth socio-cultural initiatives.

One of the most important aspects of WAVES was its bottom-up nature: the network emerged directly from the experience of youth organisations working on the ground, driven by the belief that the value of youth activism lies not in the size of projects or the legal structure of organisations, but in the impact they generate within communities.

One of the key activities of the project was Impact Lab, a national youth policy laboratory hosted by the Anti Social Social Park (ASSP) Festival in Volterra. The first edition took place from 4 to 6 August 2022, bringing together over 50 young activists from across Italy.