Paula Bruszewska

Paula challenges the current definition of ‘success,’ building new pathways and social acceptance for young people to lead their own social action projects. Tens of thousands of young people have reached over 26 million beneficiaries through their work.

Paula believes that young people (age 14-18) need to be on board to create a society we all want to live in. They have skills and capacity to shape it and they care deeply. Yet many of them stumble over the barriers (having courage, external permission, knowing how to start), preventing them from expressing their care in action. They lack confidence or don’t see the opportunities. Through her organization called “Beyond Theory,” Paula allows young citizens to experience the natural high of doing good. By hacking the current good school – good work narrative around what young people need to succeed, she enables young people to design and run real-life projects for the common good. Young people have designed projects like Campaign Grandparents, which highlighted businesses that supported seniors by showing their small, local enterprises on social media – with 100K followers on social media – or Noun Gender, workshops for younger children at school about feminatives. Paula highlights the competencies young people would acquire by taking part in the program – useful in the traditionally understood career path – cooperation, critical thinking, and management skills. But what really happens in the peer teams young people work in, is that they experience their own agency and unleash their power to do good.

“Beyond Theory” is a community that starts with an online platform that allows thousands of teenagers to diagnose, design, and implement projects for the common good. They are supported by the alumni of previous editions of the program. The participants of the program are being guided to choose educational paths (e.g., partnership building, team management) and sum up their educational journey. By tracking the progress of their social projects, they can see their own growth and development. The impact is massive. In the school year 2021/2022 alone, there are 12,000 young people participating. Together they implement 3326 socially important projects for common good.

The “Beyond Theory” community doesn’t want to be a parallel system to mainstream education forever. Paula also develops a network of supportive teachers. The teachers find themselves in a new role where they don’t transmit the knowledge, but instead of designing volunteer opportunities for children, they hold the space for their students to create and act for common good. The next step is to make sure that students become internal agents of change in their schools. Most importantly, Paula works on operationalizing the new criteria of success. In partnership with The Silesian Technical University, she has changed the admission criteria by adding extra points for the completion of the “Free from Theory” program. She and her team are now working with the Ministry of Education on adding the space to exercise the practical management skills to the current curriculum. But before the mainstream educational system absorbs the concept of “every teenager identifies as a changemaker,” Paula wants the participants of her initiative to come from everyone out of almost 8000 high schools in Poland.

In 1992 only 12% of young Poles answered yes to the question: Do you think people like you have an influence on the affairs of the country? Almost 30 years later, although 42% of young people declare that they have some influence (CBOS, 2021), it means that a majority of young people (58%) still feel powerless. The main evidence of the apathy of young people is their low voter turnout in Poland. And yet, when young people deeply care, they can and do act – like in 2020, when they got out on the streets to protest the tightening abortion laws (Młodzi 2020, eng. Youth 2020). Young people have the power to change the world but most of them don’t seem to know it, nor to be encouraged to use it.

One in every seven children in Poland feels dissatisfied with their life to the degree that threatens their mental health. The results for young people from big cities are worse where half of those surveyed said they couldn’t ‘accept themselves’ as they are. The results of a nationwide scientific study of the quality of life of children and adolescents, commissioned by the Ombudsman for Children (2021), also show an alarming mental condition of young people from families with a lower financial status. Students from grade 2 of secondary school show much worse mental well-being. As many as 44 percent of adolescents feel “fed up”, 37 percent feel lonely, and 45 percent are overwhelmed by problems. Moreover, the timetable for primary and secondary schools usually ranges from 32 to 39 lesson hours per week. In addition, even before the pandemic, the Commissioner for Human Rights pointed out that Polish students spent 6.6 hours a week on homework. Young people do not have time to express themselves and be changemakers.

Moreover, the educational system in Poland still promotes repetition and lack of initiative. There is no place for entrepreneurship in traditional schools. The main aim of any high school is to prepare young people to pass the ‘maturity’ exam (at 18 years old) and go to a university. Knowledge is prioritized over competencies. Skills like collaboration or creativity are not being tested during the exams. Furthermore, high school rankings are based on scores of the maturity exam and the number of finalists in the National Subjects Olympiad (Ranking Perspektwy 2022).
In early 2022, Poles were asked by LiveCareer about the most important criteria that prove professional and social success. According to the respondents, apart from high earnings, success in their professional life is mainly evidenced by having a stable job (79%), as well as prestige and recognition (74%). The careers of social entrepreneurs do not fit that frame. Although parents often claim that their children’s grades and awards do not matter, when one scrolls their feeds on social media, you see their children on the podium or holding golden awards. These are pieces of news that parents share, and this is still their definition of success. A Szkoła jest nasza report (School belongs to us, February 2022) shows that half of students agree with the statement “My parents expect too much from me at school”, and three quarters agree that “My teachers set very high standards for me and expect too much from me in school”.

Paula created “Beyond Theory” to give young people a chance for empowering changemaking experiences. To assure that young people get the necessary support, Paula and her team work with teachers and schools as well as with a broader ecosystem.

Paula and her team developed an online platform “Beyond Theory,” which includes gamification strategies to create a space for all young people to manifest their agency. Alumnus from the previous edition travel across Poland to invite younger colleagues to put into practice their changemaker skills and do a social project with “Beyond Theory.” On the platform, young people get practical tips that guide them through the project implementation step by step. There are four stages of project implementation: initiation, planning, implementation, and completion. The main management guide provides information on successfully implementing a project, from identifying social needs to approaching business partners. Young people can also count on a mentor's support – a colleague from previous years who has already completed their own project. The mentor can advise on any issue related to the project, using their own experience, e.g., by sharing how they solved a similar problem or acquired a partner. Support is also provided by teachers who have received “Beyond Theory” certificate. They are specialists in motivating and developing soft skills, such as management, teamwork, and problem-solving.

Anyone who completes a project at Beyond Theory obtains an international certificate in project management issued by the Project Management Institute ATP. To complete the project, young people gather a team, come up with an idea, and put it into reality. Depending on the format, a completed project has to reach an appropriate minimum number of beneficiaries. For example, the minimum number of beneficiaries participating in a public event is 90 participants. Each year ends with The Grand Final, where all participants are invited to celebrate their successes and share experiences. Beyond Theory aims to reach all 8,000 high schools across Poland. They have drawn a plan on how to achieve that by 2030.

Since the launch of the program in 2014, over 76,000 teenagers have had a chance to experience changemaking and identify as changemakers. Their combined activities have reached over 26,000,000 beneficiaries. Period poverty, healthy eating habits, digital exclusion, and even connecting Ukrainian peers looking for a refuge in Poland, are among hundreds of social issues addressed by the “Beyond Theory” projects. An evaluation done by Paula’s team shows that 13% of alumni of the “Beyond Theory” experience lead or co-lead an organization and 15% of them are considering launching one. In the 2020 edition of ‘25 under 25’ by Forbes Poland, 11 were “Beyond Theory” alumnus. 90% of participants are active voters in local and national elections.

Paula is equally convinced that teachers need to be on board – which is why she has also built a community of teachers using a project method that supports rebuilding relationships with students. “Beyond Theory” organizes workshops to strengthen competencies and allow teachers to get to know each other better; teachers develop vital competencies such as motivating students, giving feedback, and communicating. Paula and her team provide the possibility of contacting a substantive expert as needed. They also encourage teachers to exchange experiences, knowledge, and positive energy. Teachers are also proud to have “Beyond Theory Certificate,” that appreciate their qualifications and skills. To further embed this mindset in a tangible way, Paula has launched a “Beyond Theory Highschool Ranking,” as a new form of appreciating secondary schools that focus on supporting students in developing future competencies and social activities. The ranking is based on students' results in the “Beyond Theory Olympiad.” The school's final result consists of the school's performance in three criteria: the total number of finalists in a given school, the ratio of the number of finalists from a given school to the total number of students in the school, and the quality of the projects implemented in a given school. It is a promotion tool for schools, which allows them to stand out from other schools as socially aware of these important competencies. Parents and young people choosing a high school now have an alternative tool to compare schools, beside the Perspektywy ranking based on students’ performance in science.

The dream of a good job for their kids unifies parents of all classes and backgrounds. So Paula and her team use a narrative compelling not only to the young people, but also their parents and teachers. Engagement in social projects is a valuable learning experience, one that fosters developing crucial social competences important on a job market. “Beyond Theory” offers an international management skills certificate to its participants. It also partners with business leaders who confirm that the experience of managing social projects is an additional CV asset for them as employers. Businesses are not only donors but also play a significant role in legitimizing social projects as necessary experience and an excellent opportunity to build skills and competencies needed in the work market. Pracuj.pl (a Polish recruitment website, which according to its data, has almost 6.5 million registered users) plays a significant role here.

Media also play an important role in highlighting the image of young people as changemakers. During the whole day of the Great Final, Polsat TV (the second-biggest private TV in Poland) and Onet.pl (the largest Polish-language website in the category of information and journalism) broadcast from the event. Individual social projects done by children are also presented in local media and online. Paula also focuses on conversations with higher education institutions about their role in a problem and being a part of a solution. In partnership with The Silesian Technical University (20,000 students per year), she has changed the admission criteria, adding 20% of extra points for being the finalist of “Beyond Theory”. The Rector of The Silesian Technical University is also a head of The Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland. Paula and her team initiated a conversation with this body about adding the social experience of young people as admission criteria.

Recently Paula started a cooperation with the Ministry of Education to develop a meaningful curriculum for the new subject, which will be launched in the 2023 school year – Business and Management. The experience of a small pilot run by Paula and Marcin in South Africa led them to think that they might scale internationally even if work in Poland is not yet completed.

Paula spent her childhood in a small city in the North-East of Poland. Her mom was a medical doctor with a sense of mission and encouraged her to explore. Paula attended a young scout team run by a Catholic priest, who cheered on the kids’ efforts to do things for others from an early age. Paula was eight when she did her first “social project” – she has organized sports tournaments with her peers. Her family moved to Warsaw when Paula was 13. Moving to the capital was a breath of fresh air for Paula, especially since she ended up in the first non-public, libertarian school – Bednarska. Paula experienced how different schools might operate, following children’s interests and giving them space to lead their social projects.
During her university years, Paula, with her former schoolmate Marcin and a like-minded friend Rafał started to work with young people to do their social projects, but Paula wanted to work for the United Nations. She moved for her master’s degree to Universität St. Gallen in Switzerland. She attended UN Open Day, and she also was even invited to the World Bank in Washington to present her development project for Nigeria. But she realized that the world of the most prominent international organizations was not for her.
She decided to try grassroots work in India, where she helped start backyard vegetable gardens. After returning to Switzerland, she continued to fundraise for the work in India. Paula was looking for her place in the world until she realized that instead of being wise about Nigeria and India, she could use her experiences and introduce a profound change in Poland.
Three schoolmates: Paula, Marcin (currently her husband), and Rafał, put all their energy into implementing their own experiences of working with big business and doing social projects to allow being a changemaker to every teenager in Poland and beyond.