Youth Action for Nature and Well-being

Background The confluence of the climate crisis and the coronavirus pandemic brought to the surface the severity of social-ecological challenges and the unprecedented opportunity to rethink how we work, learn, and exist on our planet. Our research showed us that young people had (and continue to have) a greater need for social connection than other age grounds, a lower tolerance to uncertainty, and a belief that protecting the environment and fighting climate change should be the top priority for the European Union. For these reasons, young people have a unique and extraordinary need for support regarding community building, environmental action, and resilience building for positive mental health in facing an uncertain and challenging future. This is the reasoning that drove our application. Our project addressed the need for a collective, intercultural, and youth-led response to social-ecological challenges. The project processes and outputs addressed the youth's need for active citizenship and environmental stewardship, focusing on resiliency building and strategic action. The innovative approach to development added to the field of transformative learning, a discourse much in need of practical, youth-led contribution. Objectives There were five objectives we wanted to achieve by implementing the project: 1.) To collaborate on the design and co-creation of new ways of working with young people that improve their well-being and strengthen their sense of self-efficacy, build their leadership skills and competence to act, that enable them to respond to global crises and gain positive mental health at the same time. 2.) To pilot the new ways of working we create with participants from all partner countries and assess the impact of the methodologies tried using mixed evaluation methods. 3.) To create and publish a toolkit, a case study, a pedagogical strategy, an evaluation tool and an e-learning course representing the product of the co-creation, the innovations, and the evaluations. 4.) To share these intellectual outputs with young people, youth workers, practitioners, educators and policymakers to magnify the project's impact and contribute to the advancement of education for sustainable development. 5.) To fulfil the important policy priorities in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, UNESCO's Education 2030 and the European Youth Goals, especially: education for sustainability as a vehicle for empowerment, citizenship, and mental health and well-being. Implementation Six Transnational Meetings (TMs) were held in Ireland, Slovakia, Latvia, Spain, and the UK to plan and design four youth events and five national multiplier events. 102 individual youth participants (several of whom attended more than one activity) took part in a series of four Learning, Teaching and Training activities (LTTs) under the project. The four LTTs involved 10 facilitators/trainers from the consortium, working with youth workers from the partnering organisations to deliver the activities. The LTTs took place in Ireland, Slovakia, Latvia and Spain. During the LTTs, new education methods were piloted and refined through close collaboration with the youth participants. Evaluation sessions were conducted periodically to generate a case study dataset which reported on the impact of LTTs. Virtual meetings were conducted between project partners to enable effective collaboration and the timely production of five intellectual outputs. Multiplier Events were held in Ireland, Belgium, Spain, Slovakia and Latvia to share project outputs with key stakeholders and beneficiaries. Achievements The project produced five intellectual outputs: 1.) Toolkit for Youth Action for Nature and Well-Being 2.) Case Study of the Young People of Youth Action for Nature and Well-being 3.) Youth Action for Nature and Well-being Pedagogical Design Guide 4.) Youth Action for Nature and Well-Being E-Learning Course 5.) Transformative Learning Evaluation Tool