For the creators of tomorrow
Y_Space is a place where teenagers discover their superpowers. Creativity, passion and curiosity are encouraged here, whoever you are, and they matter more with every year that passes. The Yannik Foundation created it in Berlin in memory of Yannik, our son, brother and friend, who saw the best in everyone he met. This is where teenagers learn what matters more than technique: confidence, trust, teamwork, the courage to explore and the freedom to fail. Everyone who shares his curiosity is welcome to join.
Some examples
What we do
Y_Space takes whatever form an idea needs. It has been a workshop on a Berlin rooftop, a film made on the streets of London, a photo album, a magazine and a sports award. Some of it we created ourselves; some of it we supported because someone else had the idea and needed a hand. What follows is a selection from our own projects. There is more where that came from, and there is everything we have helped others to make, further down the page.
For every school
The Yannik El-Noshokaty Sports Award
Yannik was a natural sportsman. Football, skiing, athletics during his time in Australia: whatever he tried, he was good at, and he never once showed off about it. He would rather pass the ball than score. That is the spirit the award is there to reward.
The Yannik El-Noshokaty Sports Award goes to one pupil in a year group, chosen by their teachers, who shows what Yannik showed: real talent carried lightly, the curiosity to try something new, the passion to keep going, and the respect that makes the whole team better.
The winner receives the trophy, a voucher to spend on their own sport, and a second voucher for an activity with the whole class, because Yannik would have wanted everyone to come along. We donate the award and both rewards.
If you would like the award at your school, write to us. We will provide the trophy and the rewards and help you run it.
Get involved
Make it real
Y_Space is open to anyone who shares Yannik's way of doing things and wants to make something happen for young people. If you run a course, a workshop or a project that gives 11 to 15 year olds room for their creativity, passion and curiosity, tell us about it. We support causes like ours where we can.
If you are a teacher, a coach or a parent who would like the Yannik Sports Award at your school, write to us and we will bring the trophy and the rewards. If you are a foundation or a club working for the same things, let us know; we would rather join forces than work alone.
Why this exists
Yannik
Yannik died in spring 2015. He was twelve. Nothing we do will bring him back. We still look for a reason, and to this day there is none we can understand. What we can do is look forward, and ask what he left behind.
Yannik made people feel welcome. He was the boy who walked up to the new kid and asked whether he liked football, and years later that boy still called it the best day of his life. He was a boy's boy who was also a true friend to several of the girls in his class, and when his classmates went through a spell of being unkind to each other, he was one of the first to want it over. He liked being on stage, liked a camera, liked a pitch, and was better at some of it than the rest. He was no saint, and we would not want him remembered as one. There was too much fun in him for that: a welcome spark of mischief, a knowing smile, and a zest for life that his teachers and friends still describe in the same words.
After he died, letters came from everywhere, among them from the schools in Berlin and Melbourne he had been to, from people who had known him at different ages and in different countries, and every one of them described the same boy. Friends of different faiths, Jewish, Muslim and Christian, prayed for him side by side. It struck his teacher then, and it strikes us still, how much one small twelve year old had put into the world wherever he happened to be, and how little that had to do with borders, religion or age.
Yannik's way of being, open, curious, passionate, generous with what he was good at, would make this world a better place if more people grew up with it. We set up Y_Space to pass it on: to give teenagers a place where those qualities are noticed and encouraged, and to support others who do the same. We do this for him, and with him.
Stefanie, Tosson, Kaspar, Filippa and Cosima.
Forever with Yannik.