EUTEENS4GREEN Projects

The ‘Getting started: Climate change and advocacy workshop’ aims to empower young people in Joensuu to participate in the region's green transition through a series of workshops held from May to September 2023.\n\nThe project is organised by AEGEE-Joensuu, in collaboration with the Climate Emergency Working Group (CEWG) and Sustainability Committee (SC) of AEGEE-Europe.\nAEGEE-Joensuu is a student organisation located in Joensuu (Finland), run by volunteers aged 18-35. It is a local section of the AEGEE network and promotes a democratic, integrated, and borderless Europe. One of its main missions is to offer the skills and tools to young people to become active citizens.\nThe CEWG of AEGEE-Europe is a team of volunteers coming from several AEGEE locals across Europe. The aim of the CEWG is to encourage young people to contribute to the green transition (understood as the individual and collective measures that need to be taken to prevent an environmental catastrophe). For this project, the role of the CEWG and the Sustainability Committee is to contribute to the content of the activities and hold workshops. The CEWG and SC bring their expertise in organising such activities on the topic of climate change, by facilitating the workshops delivered.\n\nThe objective of the project is to bring new knowledge and skills to the participants, particularly those students whose studies do not relate to sustainability or the environment. The series of workshops includes the following:\n\n- Workshop: ‘Introduction to climate change and climate justice’ \nThe objective of this workshop is to deliver basic knowledge regarding climate change, its causes, and consequences. This will include a focus on the impacts of climate change on boreal and subarctic climates, relating climate change directly to participants' surroundings. The workshop will also tackle climate justice, introducing the links between social equity, the climate crisis, and the green transition. This activity develops teamwork, leadership, problem-solving, collaboration, system-thinking, and critical thinking skills. \n\n- Activity: ‘Connect to the wild’ \nIn this activity, the participants will take part in an afternoon spent in nature and engage in workshops equipping them with essential ‘wilderness’ skills. The aim of the activity is to allow the participants to connect with the nature in their locality in a new way, and to learn about the ways in which communities have interacted with nature in the past. This activity will aim at improving mental health and well-being through activities connected with nature. This activity develops teamwork, collaboration, emotional regulation, self-reflection skills. \n\n- Workshop: ‘Advocacy and policy recommendation’\nThis workshop aims to give participants a structured space to develop policy proposals for the national, regional, or municipal levels, or university policies. The workshop provides participants with knowledge about what advocacy is and how to establish an advocacy strategy, empowering participants to take an active role in policy development within the public and private spheres and thereby participate in shaping the green transition in their region. This activity develops teamwork, leadership, creative thinking, critical thinking skills. \n\n- Activity: ‘Presentation of outcomes of policy development’ \nParticipants will present the results of their policy recommendations. This activity will build upon the knowledge and skills acquired during the preceding workshop on advocacy, and allow for participants to distil the ideas developed during that session. Policy proposals will be presented to policy-makers from the municipality/university. This activity develops presentation, organisation, collaboration skills.\n\n- Activity: ‘Evaluation’ \nThe participants will fill a self-evaluation form. They will evaluate the skills and knowledge they acquired during this project. This activity develops self-reflection, evaluation skills.

The target group are young people residing in the Joensuu region, including high school students and students of higher education. People from any discipline can participate, whether or not they have prior knowledge on climate change, advocacy, and the green transition. Priority is given to local residents aged 15-25 years old.

A concrete result of the project will be the production of policy recommendation papers. Workshops hosted will include an advocacy workshop during which participants will produce policy recommendations. These outcomes will then be presented to members of the municipality and / or private decisionmakers during the workshops, as well as being shared with other local public and private decisionmakers following the workshop.\n\nThe aim of the project is to introduce young people in the Joensuu area to climate advocacy, equipping them with the tools necessary to develop their advocacy skills and advocate for themselves and their peers in the region's green transition.

aegee-joensuu@aegee.eu