The Transformers Youth Association has been running the Payback Schools Project since 2010, with the aim of helping children and young people at risk of social exclusion to become more civically active through talent and opportunities that motivate them to participate in their community. This project consists of a volunteer programme where mentors give weekly lessons in different talents (hip-hop, surfing, poetry, among others) to groups of apprentices, who throughout the school year must identify a social problem in their community and solve it with the talent they have learned (payback), promoting the development of personal and social skills.

This project relies on a codified methodology, recognised as a Knowledge Reference Methodology by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Through a systemic impact model, we have already been in 100 Portuguese cities, through 200 programmes, 310 payback actions and the training of more than 800 volunteer mentors and 6000 apprentices.