ECOrasmus – Sustainable and eco-friendly practices in educational youth work
▶Summary
The urgency of the climate crisis calls for immediate action. Youth-led climate movements like Fridays for Future show that young people are important agents of change for environmental and sustainable development. To empower their agency and to achieve a “sustainable green Europe” is also among the goals of the EU Youth Strategy. However, an examination of current practices in the European youth work sector revealed shortcomings in terms of environmental awareness and green practices. Educational youth activities, such as training courses or youth exchanges, often imply a considerable consumption of resources when participants travel by plane, are catered with a meat-based diet, or a lot of printed materials are used. Hence, for youth organisations across Europe there was and is the need to revise certain practices and to include environmental principles in their work.
▶Objectives
The project aimed to strengthen the organisational capacities of youth stakeholders to apply more eco-friendly and sustainable practices in educational youth work. Therefore, it pursued the following two objectives: ● to increase the use of innovative eco-friendly and sustainable practices in educational youth work on youth participation among organisations working in the youth field in Europe ● to foster an increased dialogue about innovative eco-friendly and sustainable practices within the youth sector in Europe
▶Activities
The project implemented the following activities: • Stakeholder research (desk research, focus groups, survey, interviews) on eco-friendly practices in educational youth work • Development of a comprehensive ECOrasmus handbook on eco-friendly practices for educational youth work (youth exchanges, training courses, youth camps etc) • Development of a ECOrasmus web platform on eco-friendly practices for educational youth work (youth exchanges, training courses, youth camps etc) • Training course on eco-friendly practices in youth projects for youth work practitioners • 3 multiplier events promoting the eco-friendly practices developed for educational youth work • Dissemination activities promoting the ECOrasmus handbook and the web platform via social media and at educational events (training courses, youth exchanges, conferences)
▶Impact
The project has created, promoted and made available online a range of educational resources for sustainable youth work; those are amongst others: - The handbook “Green your youth project” on eco-friendly practices in youth work (Catalan, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Spanish) - A web platform on sustainable and green practices in youth work addressing key topics of eco-friendly implementation of youth projects (project planning, travel, food, venue, materials, communication & collaboration, office); https://ecorasmus.eu/ - A research report on sustainable practices in educational youth activities - A training manual and 16 educational activities on eco-friendly practices in educational youth work - A resource database on sustainable practices in youth work In view to increasing dialogue with key donor programmes, the project contributed through its key researchers to the development of the publication “Umwelt- und klimaschonende Projektumsetzung - Ein Leitfaden” published by JUGEND für Europa and is currently streamlining eco-responsibility and green practices in youth project management in the revised version of the T-Kit on Project Management by the Youth Partnership of the Council of Europe and the European Commission.