CLanIMATE youth: Empowering young people to tackle climate change through the use of animation tools

Background Global warming is one of the main challenges the world facing in recent years. Without any actions to prevent and limit its effects, future generations will find themselves in critical situations. Existing research showed that the education systems in Europe do not offer sufficient education and information about the problems caused by climate change, especially το youth. ClanimateYouth was designed to empower young people to become more active citizens, and learn about and study the problems that thrive on climate change. As a result, youths that participated in our project received the skills to have a voice and a role in what is happening today in the environment and climate change. A method that can effectively help and that is why it was chosen for the project is the production of animations to persuade young people to come together and brainstorm ideas. The project aimed to help raise awareness and empower young people to tackle climate change through the production of animated short films, as an effective tool that can give young people a voice in climate policy debates change. Objectives The ClanimateYouth project was an attempt to reach youth people by increasing their awareness regarding climate change through short animation production, as an effective tool that can give voice to young people in policy debates on climate change. Through the project, we wanted to encourage youth to study climate change issues, the causes, consequences, and solutions, as viewed by them and their communities. We wanted to bring to provide young people with ways to take action on climate change, by deepening their understanding, engaging and motivating their wider community, and also shaping and creating their own animation, in order to communicate their messages and perspectives to decision-makers and the public. By training the young people we wanted to offer them a set of skills and competencies related to animation production as a means of raising young people's voices and delivering these courses to a target group of Youth workers, in order to amplify and perpetuate their ripple effect. During the training, we gave the opportunities to youths from different countries to meet together and share their enthusiasm, knowledge, and practices that might not be so common in other European countries. Implementation During the project we carried out specific activities: 1. A set of training courses for both Youth workers and youth learners to support them in gaining the knowledge and skills to explore sensitive issues related to global warming and climate change, safely and creatively, through their active involvement in the process of producing short animations, which we are expecting in the future that they will use to influence community mobilization and local action in an interactive environment created between them and their local community. 2. We Involved 16 youth workers who taught animation techniques in each of the 2 short training events (C1+C2), which young learners use as a creative and effective tool to influence and participate directly in efforts to learn about, prevent, and prepare for, cope with and adapt to climate change and extreme events. 3. We involved 20 youth learners who learned animation techniques in each of the 2 short training events (C3+C4) for young people, which will use to produce their own short animation film. 4. We built dissemination channels, such as a Website, and social media channel on Facebook, and a youtube channel. Achievements The project produced the following outputs and concrete results: •Partners learned about different techniques of animation, exchanged good practices and experiences and developed common recommendations and guidelines. •Formed friendly relations between youths from different countries and exchange of experiences. •Facilitated the collaboration between key people and Youth workers and young people from each partner •Facilitate the social integration of youths and provided an accessible way for young people to take action on climate change, •European international mobility of project participants •Social and media campaigns that utilized the short animations produced by young people to tackle climate change •Project participants’ language and social competencies through active transnational communication and participation in project activities •Project Management Plan(P1):1)agreements,2) administrative work,3) financial and budget control,4) time management, 5) templates for reporting, 6) communication means, and 7) reporting processes •Project Evaluation and Quality Assurance Plan (P2) •Dissemination Plan (P3) •Sustainability and exploitation Plan (P4)