The secret COoPeration. Youngsters in action for the climate. Erasmus Project

Project Title

The secret COoPeration. Youngsters in action for the climate.

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy)

Project Summary

The “Global Shapers Annual Survey 2017” of the World Economic Forum (http://www.shaperssurvey2017.org/static/data/WEF_GSC_Annual_Survey_2017.pdf), shows that for young people climate change is the most serious issue affecting the world today (48.8%). While 78.1% said they would be willing to change their lifestyle to protect the environment, also, concerns about water and food security (18.2%), lack of education (15.9%) and lack of economic opportunity and unemployment (12.1%) were expressed.

The Secret Cooperation – Youngsters in action for the climate has brought 25 French, Belgian and German youngsters together to learn from each other on the many topics that Climate Change action addresses. The main aim of the projects for each national organization was to choose a climate focus that the young people find important, to study the subject, become expert and ambassadors and spread awareness about it towards their friends and their peers. After the first Exchange weekend, the French side chose to work on the impacts of the clothing industry and the consumption alternatives to fast fashion, while the Belgian participants chose to focus on sustainable food consumption and the lack of media coverage on climate education and action.

Once their focus was chosen and they studied their topics on the national level for some time, they assembled together in Paris to exchange knowledge on the survey they had developed. They learned from each other’s results, and brainstormed on possible action implementation of their newly gained exchanged knowledge. The participants of CLIMates, the French partner organization, organized a survey on fashion consumption with 862 replies of French youngsters. These results became the backbone for their workshops and actions that took place after the exchange weekend in Paris. They decided to create a new organization called “Collectif Démarqué” .On the Belgian level the survey reached out to 491 youngsters that shared their (un)happiness with climate action and media coverage on the Belgian level.

The innovative character of this project was to give as much freedom as possible to the youngsters, to facilitate their learning and to let them focus on topics that are important for themselves. This resulted in a change of the initially planned direction of the project. Because the UNFCCC COP23 happened in 2017 in Europe, the active participants resulted in their brainstorm that it makes most sense to become an ambassador for the climate during this event in Bonn. But because it was impossible at that time to become accredited for the UNFCCC event, the youngsters chose to raise awareness amongst their peers on the Conference Of Youngsters (COY13), being organized right before the COP23.

4 youngsters of Kreisjugendamt Steinfurt joined the project, as they shared the same needs like the French and Belgian participants. As a result, the 3rd exchange weekend was organized in Bonn at the COY13, together with 1300 youngsters from 114 different countries. This impacted the outreach and dissemination of the project much larger than initially dreamt of. The young participants used their knowledge and expertise to become an active climate ambassador amongst other youngsters from around the globe. They spread the results of the survey and created partnerships with organizations from other European countries or even youth organizations from another continent. Together they hope to keep on being an active ambassador by spreading the need for more climate action!

The longer-term benefits of the social media accounts, the blog and the report are believed to be the awareness of the people visiting them. Even if the Collectif Démarqué breaks up, the different platforms will still be available for the visitors to look for information and discover tips and initiatives they did not know about.
Furthermore, the members themselves can bring the knowledge they have accumulated anywhere. They also gained or reinforced professionally useful skills they can highlight during job interviews.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 35250 Eur

Project Coordinator

Globelink vzw & Country: BE

Project Partners

• CliMates
• Kreisjugendamt Steinfurt