Joint Ventures: Jeunes et des espaces vertes
▶Summary
The aim of the project was to spur youth to become actors of social change through providing them with the skill-sets to navigate the new normal. This would permit them to see our common future in a new light. The project Joint Ventures: Jeunes et des Éspaces Vertes is one that has gained an added meaning over the project implementation period, with 2022 being declared as the European Year of Youth with the issue of Climate Change and Environment coming to the fore besides the ever important issue of young activists engaging in disruptive actions. Our goal was to allow the youth to think differently and appreciate the differences while simultaneously learn new items, especially those that would permit them to make meaningful changes to their lives, contribute to an evolving society and perhaps land a green-job. The latter is an important part of the project as today’s youth are increasingly inquiring about the state of the economy and climate and wish to tangibly contribute to a greener society of tomorrow.
▶Objectives
We wanted to impact youth positively and tangibly and impart them valuable skills through the trainings, besides create the handbook and the web platform to allow other young individuals to learn about green skills and green ways of living. As mentioned in our application, the following items were what we set out to achieve: (i) capacity-building of youth on green-life skills (ii) refining the attitude of youth towards climate change, through practical examples and long-term impact examples (iii) provide youth exciting ways to contribute tangibly to concerted climate action (iv) impart green-life skills to youth, especially in adherence to WHO’s definition of life skills 'abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life' to aid in green youth work (v) support creation of local summer camps by providing youth a handbook and an online platform allowing youth to network, organise and lead such camps to further involve others in the ‘green-marathon’
▶Activities
During the course of the project implementation, we were able to implement the following activities: Training Activity 1: Rural Ventures Location: Poronin, Poland Dates: June 2022 Duration: Seven days Training Activity 2: Urban Ventures Location: Luxembourg City, Luxembourg Dates: October-November 2022 Duration: Six days The above two activities involved youth and youth workers as participants to engage them and impart them green life-skills in rural and urban settings respectively. Outreach activities: 1 in each partner country: Luxembourg, Italy, Germany, Spain and Poland Dates: November-December 2023
▶Impact
The tangible results of the project are: Result 1: 'Green-Life Skills: An Illustrative Handbook & Youth-Camp Guide’ The result, which is available in Spanish, Polish, Italian, French and German besides of course English is the joint-work of all the project partners, and comprises of the following sections: (i) Glossary: to assist youth, youth worked and the greater Erasmus + oriented public understand climate jargon and parlance (ii) Introductory chapter on green skills, green jobs and policy perspectives (iii) Urban Outlook tailored to urban living and the issues of reducing energy use, improving waste collection and sustainable living (iv) Rural Outlook, dedicated to green skills, agriculture and organic food (v) Youth camps with a step-by-step guide to organise one, a checklist of essential items, some real-world examples and a first-aid explanatory guide Result 2: The web platform ‘https://jointventurescamps.eu/’ The platform, when finally created, allowed to reflect a part of the idea that we had proposed during the application. It has a list of organisations from each of the partner countries that will help interested young people. The platform also permits downloads of Result 1 and the checklist in the various languages. Some of the project’s outputs were: (i) to positively impact and impart valuable knowledge to young individuals and youth workers who attended the two training events: over twenty participants in Poland and sixteen in Luxembourg. (ii) engage youth through cross-cutting means to support them buttress the resilient society of tomorrow (iii) understand the value of reducing the individual carbon footprint and taking actual steps to do it, including a change in lifestyle (iv) provide tips and techniques through the training events and the handbook to help the targeted individuals undertake actual activities (v) build team-skills and life-skills in youth (vi) awareness-raising on waste use, reduction, recycling and upcycling (vii) providing a sense of direction when searching for green jobs and trying to clarify on the required skill-sets