EUTEENS4GREEN Projects

The project aims to increase the awareness of the power that young citizens hold in the decision-making processes of local governments.\n\nThe main goal in the project is to increase the awareness of the power that young citizens hold in the decision-making processes of local governments in the fields like: preventing climate change, managing\ninformation shortage on the topic of Europe's energetic crisis, land management, public transportation, funding participatory youth activities and local NGO's development. It is important for youth to know about the power they are given to co-determine the activities that are happening simultaneously in the Just Transition processes, and how to take part in it. Beyond that, we want to give young people an opportunity to acknowledge how our daily practices are entangled in capitalism, how they sustain a system that wants to constantly grow and produce as much as possible, exploiting people and nature. Because the best thing for preserving climate would be a profound change of the system - not only in the area of energy, but also by\ntransformation of transportation, agriculture, forestry, how we build houses, apartments, cities. How we allocate the budget given to us by the government, local government or the European Union. We believe that young peopleshould be able to understand the situation, but also should be responsible for educationg others in this matter. We want to achive this goal through educating our peers with non-formal learning methods, and the peer to peer aspect is an added value. The team applying for the project and implementing the activities is a\ngroup of young people with experience in this field of education. We believe, that non-formal education is crucial to create a civil society and sustainable future. Gaining experiance and taking part in additional\nschool activities is essential and complementary to the educational institution's curriculums.\nIn this project, we want to conduct a series of meetings in the spirit of a method called \"open space\". The activities will be carried out in different cities that are within the carbon-intensive regions: Chorzów,\nGliwice, Mikołów, Katowice. We will conduct 4 open space meetings with panel discussions. The participants will be:\n- young people (with local activists, members of Youth Councils, youth workers amongst them);\n- experts in the field of social education, sustainable development, public managment;\n- and decision makers.\nEach open space will be attended by 10-15 young people and 3 experts and decision makers. Each participant in the open space will have the opportunity to propose a topic they would like to discuss with the\nother young participants or experts or decision makers, then sit at a table with the chosen topic. Each group will be asked to develop conclusions and recommendations on a given topic and present them to the other participants (including decision-makers). Systematic evaluation of the participants' progress and their\nobjections and concerns will make it possible to accurately determine what should be discussed. The working methods used during the meetings will include project method work, structured dialogue,\nbrainstorming, participatory observation, teamwork, activation methods. The purpose of the meetings is:\n- to raise awareness of the problem of climate change,\n- to decrease inequalities amongst the young people that are at risk of being excluded of the green transition\nin our region,\n- to develop empathetic attitudes by learning how to respond to new problems that are challenging young\npeople in the time of energetic crisis, and learning how to overcome it in local and global environments,\n- to reflect on active participation in a democratic society.\nThrough these meetings, young people will expand their civic competencies, figure out ways to effectively build an inclusive civil society focused on the sustainable development of carbon-intensive regions. After the events, all participants will be invited to join the process of evaluation and raporting. In the process,\nparticipants will discuss the ideas they came up with during the meetings, as well as what they liked and what should be improved. Everything will be written down and put together into publication, so it can be used in the future as a reference while proposing a change to decision makers.

IMPACT OF THE PROJECT ON PARTICIPANTS:\n- gaining self-confidence and readiness to act and make decisions thanks to consultation with experts,\nverification and recommendation of these ideas at the stage of their formation with experts;\n- learning openness and emphatetic dialogue;\n\n- inducing greater involvement of young people of different age in civic participation, thanks to the open-\nspace methot and non-formal learning methods used during the project;\n\n- increasing the sense of agency and decision-making in local matters;\n- increasing the ability of young people to argue their proposals and express their opinions;\n- learning correct patterns of communication behavior;\n- increasing linguistic competence and communication skills.\n- learning openness, empathy and tolerance\n\nIMPACT OF THE PROJECT ON OTHER TARGET GROUPS:\n- drawing attention to the problem of climat and energetic crisis and increasing awareness of the resulting\nrisk of exclusion of certain groups (this mainly concerns the decision-makers);\n- drawing the attention of decision-makers and the whole community to the problems of young people thanks\nto participation in open-space meetings.\n\nThe publication, developed by the participating young people and the project team, will allow us to recognize\nand disseminate the reflections, questions and ideas developed during the activities. In addition, participants\nin each open-space meeting will be given a pretest to fill out, testing their current knowledge and attitudes\ntoward the topic of climate change and Just Transition. At the end of each activity, participants will complete\nthe same test. With this method, the project team will be able to prove the impact that the project had on the\nyoung participants. In addition, it will be a testament to the active and informed participation of young people\nin the project.

k.kwak@agereaude.pl

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