The youth sector has been at the forefront of developing good practice in the area of sustainability and this is not a trend that is new to the sector; it is something that has been developing for many years, but it is true that in recent years there’s has been much more of a policy focus and, following that increased funding.

As the EU-CoE Youth Partnership Exploratory Study: Sustainability in Learning Mobility points out:

“The youth sector has been active in the sustainability field for many years. There are numerous initiatives coming from the grass roots….. Non-governmental organisations have been developing sustainable practices, among them learning mobility ones, since long before specific policy strategies were published. However, in 2021, major EU programmes providing funds for learning mobilities in Europe, Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps, introduced a new priority focusing on the environment and fighting against climate change, which has already boosted initiatives devoted to this topic.”

The study goes on to lay out some examples of youth-led organisations who are working extensively on the topic of sustainability.

A journey to sustainable, quality youth mobility

Whilst it’s clear that there’s work to be done in further mapping and spreading good green practices in learning mobility, it’s also evident that young people don’t need to be persuaded on this front. Their activism is changing minds and policies, but more needs to be done, both on a practical level and on embedding the topic in youth work and in citizenship education.

On a practical level, when developing youth mobility projects, there are many ways to build in greener practices. The Q!App has plenty of “food for thought” and tips in this area, see for example, its preparation plan for more environmentally friendly projects.

Build Best Practices

To ensure youth mobility activities follow good practice when it comes to sustainability, the Youth Partnership between the EU and the Council of Europe has published a handy guide:

• “Greening the Youth Sector – Sustainability checklist” which lays out some key criteria for making youth projects, including mobility projects “greener” – from venues and accommodation – checklist etc, through to food, waste and, of course, travel – the document gives top tips on ensuring a lower impact on the environment and embedding good practice in organisations. But, as it states in the publication, the youth sector still has a way to go on its journey to becoming greener: “Environmental awareness and thinking sustainably are part of a continuous process of learning, innovating and (re)creating.”

Read also

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L'articolo How To | Sustainable and Environmentally Friendly Projects proviene da Youth Networks.

Erasmus+ Priorities

Among the objectives to pursue, here are the four main ones:

• Promoting inclusion and diversity;
• Making projects ‘greener’ and encouraging environmentally sustainable and responsible behaviour among participants and participating organisations;
• Supporting the digital transition through projects and activities that boost digital skills, foster digital literacy and develop understanding of the risks and opportunities of digital technology;
• Promoting the participation of young people in democratic processes and civic engagement.

Environmental Sustainability

A new research maps out Erasmus+ projects in education for environmental sustainability and highlights 15 case studies, summarising the findings from the Erasmus+ programme which showcase successful educational approaches towards learning for environmental sustainability. 

Education and training plays a crucial role in helping people understand and act on environmental sustainability. For this reason, the European Commission supports actions which work towards this goal. According to a new study, there have been thousands of Erasmus+ projects which focus on learning for environmental sustainability since 2014.

The Power of European Projects Toward Sustainability

Over European Projects, transnational teams come together to explore environmental challenges of common European and global concern, with a variety of innovative, interdisciplinary, hands-on methods: from simulation games, and science-technology-society education models, to GPS-based scavenger hunt apps.

Explore these successful cases, and get inspiration!

Read also

Report on the Outcomes of Erasmus+ Projects

Toolbox on Values, Sustainability and Social Impact of Social-Solidarity Economy

L'articolo Erasmus+ Projects for Environmental Sustainability proviene da Youth Networks.

What can you find in the booklet? 

In the booklet “Mountains & Memories” you can find useful information about hiking, how to pack for a hike, how to make various knots, what kind of herbs to look for and may be used for tea, and how to prepare a blueberry jam. 

You can have a look at the booklet HERE.

Related articles:
Create a more sustainable life with… PERMACULTURE!

L'articolo Adventure in NATURE is calling me! Prepare for it well by looking at Mountains & Memories – a booklet on exploring nature and a healthy lifestyle! proviene da Youth Networks.

During his state of the Union address in 2018, Commission’s president Jean-Claude Juncker launched the new Africa-Europe Alliance for Sustainable Investment and Jobs. It stated the necessity to “build a true partnership among equals and deepen the EU’s economic and trade relationship with Africa, through strategic investment and job creation”. The goal within the end of the seven-year period 2014-20 is to reach 35.000 mobilities.

Which programmes?

Mobilities for teachers and learners are the most popular initiatives. Students, researchers and staff traveled through short-term Erasmus+ University exchanges between Africa and Europe.

There have been also many projects under capacity buildings in the field of youth. Between 2014 and 2018, 206 projects in Africa have been approved, covering 39 African countries from Benin to Zimbabwe. 8.500 young people and youth workers from European and African countries are involved. Projects cover topics from human rights to inter-cultural dialogue, migration, rural entrepreneurship, digital empowerment and innovative learning platforms.

Capacity Buildings in Higher Education are very important instruments too. Since 2015, 146 projects have focused on Africa. The 35 projects involving African institutions selected in 2019 are helping to foster innovative learning and new methodologies, supporting entrepreneurship, laboratories of Innovation and Business for Young
Actors of Start-ups, new study programmes on climate change.

Almost 1.200 have also benefited from Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degrees scholarships, in order to spend a period of studies abroad in the above mentioned countries.

A new project for mobility in vocational education and training (VET) has been launched, covering a three-year period. it is a pilot project, the selection of the institutions is still ongoing. It aims to develop technical skills and revitalise vocational education.

This pilot project will offer an Erasmus-type cooperation between VET providers in the EU Member States and all regions of Africa, combining capacity building and learner and staff exchange programmes in the priority fields of engineering, manufacturing and construction, agriculture and tourism/catering.

The magnitude

“Empowering young people in Africa is key in building a better future. This means promoting education, and this year, we have focused in particular on boosting cooperation with businesses to ensure that young people in Africa acquire all the skills they need for their professional life” said Tibor Navracsics, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport.

“Our Africa-Europe Alliance is first and foremost about people. We want to invest in quality education in Africa. We want to strengthen the connections between European and African students and higher education institutions. Giving them the chance to exchange know-how and inspire one another will boost inclusive socio-economic growth, and reduce poverty and inequality. On top of this, it will equip African students with the skills they need to find decent jobs” also commented Neven Mimica, Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development.

L'articolo Africa-EU alliance boosted with over 17 million proviene da Youth Networks.

The contest

The Access City Award answers exactly to this purpose. It pursues three main goals:

• provide to organisations and municipalities the chance to have their project funded;
• share and exchange good practices among municiplaities;
• and, of course, cities with better facilities.

The purpose of the award is to recognises and celebrates a city’s willingness, ability and efforts to become more accessible, in order to:

• guarantee equal access to fundamental rights;
• improve the quality of life of its population and ensure that everybody – regardless of age, mobility or ability – has equal access to all the resources and pleasures cities have to offer.

Who can participate?

The contest is open to:

• all EU cities of over 50 000 inhabitants;
• urban areas composed of two or more towns with a combined population of over 50 000 inhabitants, if they are in EU countries with fewer than 2 cities with over 50 000 inhabitants.

As one can see, entries must be submitted by the local municipality or mayoral office. This means that, if you’re an organisation or association whishing to participate to the contest, you should contact the respecitve offices and propose to apply.

Here there is the application form. The award is implemented within the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020, that implies, among others, the worki towards a barrier-free Europe.

How much is the prize?

2019 marks the 10th annyversary of ACA. The European Commission is then going to award the winning cities with a total of EUR 350.000, to be split among the first three cities that scored the best result.

Deadline

The deadline to submit the projects is set on 11 September 2019, 24:00 CET.

L'articolo Open contest: Access City Award proviene da Youth Networks.

The Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO) Science & Technology Conference is going to be held in June 24-28 in Vienna, Austria. The civil society advocates from all over the world await it with their breaths captured. It’s hard to believe but it’s been just over 3 years since the CTBTO Youth Group has been established to support the CTBTO agenda from the future leaders’ perspective. Back then it seemed promising, though the global youth engagement experience that could extend even to the most high-level events on the agenda has been poor if it ever existed. The CTBTO had the unexplored path to step into to accomplish the objectives for which the Youth Group got formed.

The beginning

The way my own life has been rolling out nothing seemed to predict me joining the Youth Group, though it happened as such through the numerous surprises from my own destiny. Simply visiting Vienna back in April 2016 half of our student group got sent to see the OSCE session and another one got to tour the Vienna International Centre (VIC) where Ban Ki-Moon, the UN 8^th Secretary General, was supposed to be present. I personally dreamed of seeing the UN Secretary-General, the ambassador of all nations and of people, the figure so grand in my imagination. I was 17 years old back then and was hoping to achieve something important and very early. I woke up every day hoping to reach the stars that were shining for me.

The CTBTO

And once inside of the VIC we went to take our tour and then proceeded to the CTBTO Anniversary Ministerial Meeting. The hall was packed and we, the tiny students from some distinct Russian towns, have stood almost by the doors. In such cases I always find my way to get through and stand so that I can participate well. I knew I wasn’t there for standing and watching, I was there for acting. That was my first time I ever heard about CTBTO. Anxiously googling everything about the Organization I actively posed my questions live through Twitter. My activity got noticed by the moderators for sure. Finally, by the closing of the session the floor was open for questions. And there I knew – this was my one and only chance to address the UN Secretary-General directly. I had no idea about what I should ask him. Though I knew I had to ask something. And I started googling everything about Ban Ki-Moon and have discovered that he won an essay contest and visited the United States of America as an award back when he was a school student. I am also the winner of a similar U.S. Department of State Exchange Program and I have linked our biographies into a question: “How winning a high school essay contest lead you to become the UN Secretary-General?”. Everyone turned back to see the boy who asked such an extraordinary question. I heard people smiling and applauding. I felt as if the question was posed at a right time and at a right moment.

Joining the Youth Group

And that question led me to have been noticed by CTBTO and the offer to join the newly forming Youth Group followed right after. I accepted it still having little idea about the organization. I was 17 back when I joined it and I was still in High School. Over the years of my engagement with the Youth Group I have been pursuing every chance to get involved whether it be helping at a booth during the American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting in San-Francisco or participating at an unforgettable trip to one of the first Soviet nuclear test sites in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan – everything welcomed me to learn more and fall deeper in love with the good causes of CTBTO – secure the world we live in from the nuclear arms testing. Once and forever we are capable of achieving it as a whole. Recognizing the mutual concerns of all parties and respecting all views. The important and almost universally accepted idea is that CTBT has to enter into force. Though the missing signatures to the Treaty remind us of the differences in the approach to the issue. This makes the situation even more challenging, though it is also the opportunity to cooperate more.

The CTBTO 2019 Science and Technology Conference

The conference to be held during this week is the bell ringing for all the citizens of the planet Earth to come together to the city where diplomacy experienced its’ Renaissance. The city where nations recognized the power of negotiations stronger and more robust than the power of any weapons. This is the time to remember this and recognize that the comprehensive agreements are uneasy to reach, though once the determination is strong and the support is extensive – they are simply a signature away. The Youth Group members are actively engaging into the dialogue on the grounds of CTBTO to learn as much as they can from the current policymakers as if they were in line waiting for their time to come. Taking into account how strongly the role of the youth actors is transforming currently, I would offer the alternative plan: the youth is not the one to come tomorrow and to take on the unfinished work. The Youth is here and now to engage into resolving the challenges. And CTBTO is on the right track having the extraordinary Youth Group open to all inspired individuals offering them the means to learn and participate, impact the agenda and address the policymakers and the expert community to get together to work out the solutions for making CTBT become the codified universal law. The bells of 2019 Science and Technology Conference ring louder than ever before.

L'articolo Youth in power: the CTBTO Science & Tech conference proviene da Youth Networks.

It will be co-hosted by the Sustainable Ocean Alliace and the university of Tromsø, with the partecipation of the Norwegian ministry of Foreign Affairs. The theme for 2019 is “Co-creating the Sustainable Blue Economy”

The summit is taking place in the framework of the “Our Ocean” Conference. The mission of the conference is to gather together all the most important stakeholders at global level involved in one of the most challenging issues of nowadays: preserving the ocean. There will be representatives of governments, industry, science and civil society, discussing and working together to find a balance between the market’s demands and the safety of the environment. The “Our Ocean” conferences were initiated by Secretary of State John Kerry in 2014, with the aim to put oceans on the foreign policy agenda and create a platform where leaders from government, business and civil society meet on an equal footing to promote action and innovation for clean, healthy and productive oceans.

The Sustainable Ocean Alliance, based in San Francisco, aims at preserving the ocean with a collective worldwide action, spreading beyond national borders. Following the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal Number 14, SOA implemented two programmes: Ocean leadership programme and Ocean solutions accelerator. The Ocean leadership programme foresees a joint action between young people from all over the world: they apply to become Ocean leaders and then they can ideate, implement and create campaigns and advocacy campaigns, through so-called Ocean solutions Hubs.

Three main topics for this fourth “Our Ocean Youth Leadership Summit”: inspire, inform, empower. The participants will get the chance to build holistic solutions that better balance the needs of society, industry and the ocean environment. The participants will get the chance to:

• Participate in a solution-driven bootcamp to apply knowledge and technology that can help us protect our oceans
• Raise your profile and network with 500+ policymakers, corporate leaders, heads of international organizations, foundations, and NGOs
• Receive mentorship and develop your professional skill sets by learning from business, government, and science experts
• Meet with entrepreneurs who are building scalable ocean startups to help protect and sustain our ocean
• Become an #SOAOceanLeader and join our global community represented in over 130 countries.

Applications must be sent before July 5, 2019 11:59pm PST at the following link.

L'articolo Call for participants: Our Ocean youth leadership summit proviene da Youth Networks.

The call is open for non-governmental youth organisations, networks and other non-governmental structures involved in areas of youth work relevant to the Council of Europe’s youth policy. 

The activities will be held in co-operation with the European Youth Centres in Strasbourg and Budapest. They will be embedded in the study session for the first semester, starting on 1st October. 

Study sessions are international youth events lasting between 4 and 8 days which bring together members of youth organisations or networks and experts for discussions on a specific subject relevant to the priorities 2020-2021 of the Council of Europe Youth sector.

The deadline for applications (1^st semester 2020) is 1st April 2019.

L'articolo Call for co-operation study sessions between Council of Europe and youth organisations proviene da Youth Networks.

The project

“Youth for Europe” is a long-term project funded by the EU Commission in the framework of the call European Youth Together (KA3 Erasmus+). It will involve more than 200 young people coming from Italy, Spain, Romania, Hungary, Germany and the United Kingdom. During six international Youth Exchanges, the youngsters will be asked to develop proposals to modify the current EU policies on three main topics (media, environment, youth and education). Through meetings with experts and several thematic workshops, the young participants could decide how to create and promote their proposals, which will be then collected on the online platform youthforeurope.eu and voted by the users at European level.

The young people who will have created the most voted proposals will take part in the Large Scale Youth Exchange (May 2020) to present their ideas to EU policy makers and institutions. Each group shall try to get the support for their proposals by members of EU Parliament, having the opportunity to meet them in person during the last meeting in Bruxelles.

The main goal

“Youth for Europe” offers the young participants the chance to play a central role in the European decision-making process and to get a deeper knowledge of the EU policies through intercultural learning, non-formal education and peer-to-peer activities.

The main objective of the project is to stimulate a bottom-up process. It will promote a more inclusive European society and establish dialogue and cooperation among young people, policy makers and organisations by fostering debates on EU policies at local, national and European level.

The partners

Here the organisations involved in the project: Associazione di Promozione Sociale Joint and Kora from Italy, DGT from Romania, Vilagjaro from Hungary, Jugend- & Kulturprojekt e.V. from Germany, Momentum World from the UK, Brujula Intercultural from Spain and, as advocacy expert, ECEPAA from Belgium.

Activities and events

• 25/11-02/12, Italy: kick off Meeting
• 6-14/02/19, Spain: seminar on Methodologies
• 11-21/03/19, Spain: 1^st  YE for EU Elections – topic: Media (application closing date: 11/01/2019)
• 9-19/04/19, Italy: 2^nd YE for EU Elections – topic: Youth and Education (application closing date: 8/02/2019)
• 9/05/19, all countries: local events on EU elections
• 10-17/06/19, Hungary: mid term evaluation
• 5-12/07/19, Romania: 1^st TC for Youth Leaders
• 7-17/09/19, Hungary: 1^st Topic related YE: Youth and Education
• 1-14/10/19, Romania: 2^nd Topic related YE: Environment
• 18-25/10/19, Germany: 2^nd TC for Youth Leaders
• 4-14/12/19, Spain: 3^rd Topic related YE : Environment
• 20-30/01/20, Italy: 4^th Topic related YE: Media and data protection
• 10-13/04/20, Italy: APV large scale YE
• 2-10/05/20, Italy: Large Scale YE
• 21-25/09/20, Belgium: final evaluation.

L'articolo Youth for Europe: the chance for youngsters to make an impact proviene da Youth Networks.