Yes to Sustainability Partnership

Background This strategic partnership was centred on the exchange of good practice regarding sustainability youth exchanges (YEs) and specifically the question of how the partners could support young people to create successful and high-quality youth exchange (YE) projects. All partners were involved in a loose network called Yes to Sustainability (YTS) born from a series of youth exchanges in ecovillages and local sustainability projects for young adults that addressed different aspects of sustainability. These YEs had been highly successful, had created a lot of connections between young adults from many countries, and promoted values like solidarity, respect for diversity, and low-impact lifestyle choices. Many very motivated and engaged young people were willing to put time and effort into developing YEs related with sustainability topics, but success rates were discouragingly low. For example, during a contact making event in 2018, 7 YE projects were developed and submitted, but only 2 selected for funding. How to support youth to develop quality YEs that would help them to explore sustainability? This was the main focus, topic and aim of the project. Objectives The partner organisations aimed at deepening their collaboration and sharing their experiences concerning sustainability YEs and engaging youth in the examination of sustainable lifestyles. The long-term objective of the project was to make a contribution to creating a resilient, low-carbon society in Europe and keeping climate change within reasonable limits. The project wanted to raise awareness of climate-friendly lifestyle choices among young people: - Directly through peer learning, dissemination, and networking activities; - Indirectly through supporting organisers of sustainability-related YEs to implement high-quality projects. Through YTS, young people would learn about how their ecological footprint was affected by lifestyle, to apply critical thinking to their choices as consumers, and practical solutions and options for reducing their own personal contribution to climate change that had been explored in ecovillages and sustainability projects for decades. Young people were also supported to become active citizens and change agents towards a low-carbon society as organisers and group leaders in sustainability YEs. Implementation The activities implemented were 2 short-term joint staff trainings and 4 long-term staff mobilities. This first short-term training ‘Success factors in YTS YEs’ happened in Serbia in June 2021 and it brought together 19 participants. The main topic was exchange of good practice on sustainability YEs. This exchange laid the foundation for the project output ‘Sustainability in Youth Exchanges’ brochure, one of the project results. The second short-term training happened in Spain in November 2022 and it brought together 15 youth workers. The goal was to train the youth workers’ capacity to support and mentor young people who engage as YE organisers. A new community of practice was formed between the existing mentoring team and those participants who felt ready to start mentoring others. The 4 long-term mobilities happened between September 2021 and May 2022. 2 of them took place in Germany, 1 in Slovenia and 1 in Spain. All of them supported the exchange of good practices among partners and the achievement of the project’s objectives. Achievements The most tangible result of this project is a 36-page brochure ‘Sustainability in Youth Exchanges’. It briefly introduces sustainability, YEs and YTS and describes sustainable good practices along the four dimensions of sustainability: the social, economy, ecology and worldview. It portrays 3 examples of successful YEs and addresses youth empowerment and youth involvement. It is available as a free download. The previously very simple YTS website has been completely renewed and upgraded with new features and content. The project allowed the YTS network to consolidate and expand. New structures, materials and procedures have been created, more people and organisations have been attracted to the network. A database with contact details of young people and organisations has been created. The central question to be explored in this project was: how can we more effectively support young first-time organisers of youth exchanges to be successful and create quality projects? The results found are that a combination of different elements seems most promising. Another project result related to mentoring is a community of practice that has been established between all YTS mentors who are now active.