Whatsalp youth Erasmus Project

Project Title

Whatsalp youth

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 2017

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

The “Whatsalp Youth” project had an important significance in the field of youth participation. The project allowed young people to be part of the project “WhatsAlps” and they could expand the boundaries of their own projects and shape it according to their expectations. Young adults co-organised and took part in international meetings in the form of hiking tours, which were held in Italy “Südtirol” (9.7. – 12.7.2017), France “Bardonecchia – Briançon” (1.9. – 4.9.2017) and Liechtenstein “Balzers” (12.1. – 14.1.2018) as well as at the Fusine Lakes at the border between Italy and Slovenia (5.7. – 8.7.2018). The meetings were held at intervals of several months. The date of the meeting was adjusted to the participants. The first two meetings were during the time the long-distance hike, named whatsalp, took place. The last two meetings were aimed at young participants only.
The project whatsalp had a goal: to show changes in the landscape and society between 25 years ago and now. The changes were documented and discussed with stakeholders, looking at scenarios from the past and for the future. The project whatsalp was monitored by Swiss Alpine researchers Dominik Siegrist and Harry Spiess. With their extensive knowledge and observations of the Alps, young people have gained a better picture of the current state and needs in the Alps.
In this 4 international meetings, young people learned how to organize meetings to collect ideas, to develop their own national projects and to evaluate them. The whole project was attended by six youth groups from six Alpine countries. Each national group decided to carry out a project for which they felt the need in their surroundings. In the selection of the project, the personal interest of participants was also important. Most of the participants were students of the natural science field, which was also shown in the selection of a sustainable project with a touch of awareness and nature conservation, and with the willingness to perform activities outside the four walls.

The national projects that were realized thanks to Whatsalp youth are the following:
1.) National team from Germany – organize volunteer work on cultural landscape management in the Bavarian Alps.
2.) National team from Slovenia – educate young people about the problem in national park Triglav and the lake inside the park that is facing eutrophication.
3.) National team from Italy – raising awareness among young people at school about the importance of a clean environment, and negative consequences of waste.
4.) National team from France – «Color hunt» workshop for kids, to woke up the interest for nature.
5.) National team from Austria – video about the problems in the Alps and voices of young people on dealing with it.
6.) National team from Liechtenstein – workshop about landscape and homeland “how the inhabitants of a small country look at it?”.

More information on the projects are in the documentation under the google docs link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1gnzM-4mu_WVm2ycPytpGbqqSKSD_JB-e
The project offered participants a great opportunity to learn independently from the field of project management and the implementation of international meetings. In particular, independent project implementation demonstrated the importance of careful planning of more demanding projects. Which also led to the fact that some projects needed more help that they thought, and some of them more time. Investing a lot of energy into projects has led some groups to continue their activities even after the completion of whatsalp youth project.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 41600 Eur

Project Coordinator

Verein CIPRA International & Country: LI

Project Partners

• Alpenfreude
• AlpenIntensiv
• Alpine First
• Mladi za Alpe
• CIPRA France