Sustainability, transition and resilience
KA1-Mobility of Youth workers
Applicant: ILIOSPOROI DIKTYO EREYNAS, TEKMIRIOSIS KAI ENERGOPOIISIS GIA TIN OIKOLOGIA KAI TIN ALLILEGGYI (DIKTYO ILIOSPOROI)
SUSTRARES SUMMARY
The SUSTRARES project aimed at providing concrete competencies, skills and expertise to youth workers in order to act as multipliers and sustainability agents for their localities. Since mainstream and formal education are not structured to provide the skills and competencies needed to tackle modern challenges in a crisis context, SUSTRARES aimed to create and strengthen training paths and resources based on real-life applications for resilience, sustainability and self-sufficiency. The partnership had the concrete objective of providing open knowledge and training for positive change in the personal lives of participants (regarding coverage of basic needs, entrepreneurship and employment), as a response to the multi-dimensional crises Europe is facing.
SUSTRARES main activity was a 10-day training course (10-19/9/2016), which was developed with the concrete intent to encourage the active engagement of youth workers in sustainability transition initiatives, to exchange experiences concerning the promotion of local sustainability in European countries and to provide competencies and skills to youth workers to actively engage in the their local context and the employment market.
SUSTRARES gave the opportunity to 36 youth workers and trainers from 6 different countries (Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Croatia and Germany) to become familiar with concepts such as sustainability, self-sufficiency, transition and resilience, at both theoretical and practical levels. In the course of 10 days, participants jointly carried out a programme of mixed activities (participatory seminars, practical workshops, exercises, debates, role plays, simulations, outdoor activities, etc) that enhanced their skills and competencies and allowed them to experience a multicultural simulation of living in an ecological community.
The youth worker mobility focused on non-formal experiential training (learning by doing), co-creation of DIY convivial/ frugal technologies and networking, while it provided useful skills for employability enhancement and community engagement. Topics addressed during the training course included energy autonomy using renewable sources, natural housing, waste management, food self-sufficiency, agro-ecology, health self-management, participatory decision making, and cooperative entrepreneurship.
The main activity was hosted in the premises of the STAGONES Sustainability Academy (www.stagones.org) in Vlachia Evia, which is comprised of three 1.5 acre plots and a variety of hosting and training infrastructure constructed solely with natural material. The training course hosted very experienced trainers from few of the most active sustainability transition/ self-resilience collectives in Greece, namely Stagones, Nea Guinea, iliosporoi network, and UfiT, trainers from professional associations like Place Identity, We deliver taste and Perivoli Korinthou, from the international network SEYN (Sustainable Energy Youth Network), as well as trainers from the other project partners.
The project was coordinated by ILIOSPOROI NETWORK (Greece) and the other partners included: GAIA (Portugal), LA FABBRICA DEL SOLE (Italy), LA BARRACA (Spain), TRANSITION TOWN WITZENHAUSEN (Germany), ZMAG (Croatia).
SUSTRARES has produced a series of results that can inspire for replication and elaboration by youth workers in similar contexts across Europe. From the programme of activities and the non-formal methods used, till the material produced and disseminated. The results as depicted in the following section is merely a depiction of the experience and the emotions felt by the participants.
1. Video of activities
The coordinator ILIOSPOROI NETWORK produced with the collaboration of Cinergies Cooperative (www.cinergies.coop) a short video (7m18s) of the SUSTRARES training course that can be publicly accessible here: https://youtu.be/-oVE5pQd7iQ
2. Short interviews on video
Cinergies.coop and ILIOSPOROI NETWORK produced small interviews with participant reflections from the training course that can be publicly accessed in the following links:
https://youtu.be/53jypnWnG1s
https://youtu.be/9gy6v6E_je0
https://youtu.be/wjNGy_Bp6fI
https://youtu.be/tz17lXuju_8
https://youtu.be/IcB86nwgPeI
https://youtu.be/wpR8gaUiP4A
3. Website
A website that has already been constructed as a result of two Lifelong Learning partnerships (https://co-munity.net) was utilized by project partners as it provides tools for group organisation, project management (calendar and case tracker), document management and collaborative writing (notebook and etherpad), discussion (blog), reference management (bibliography), embedding media (sound, images, video) and even creating web forms that can be built into on-line surveys. The Co-munity website contributed not only towards the better communication and coordination among partners, but it proved to be a useful tool for public dissemination and communication with various stakeholders, as well as planning of follow up projects.
As such, project partners created https://co-munity.net/sustrares that offers a public website with project resources as well as an intranet for partner communication and collaboration. The SUSTRARES web-page is under constant upgrade and construction.
4. Poster, follow up flyer and project logo
The Coordinator, ILIOSPOROI NETWORK, created with the support of Phoenix Productions a dedicated project logo, as well as a Poster and Follow-up Flyer that can be accessed in the following link: https://degrowth.community/node/2007150
The Poster and Follow-up Flyer will be used for expanding the informal network of cooperation that was initiated in SUSTRARES training course, and will serve towards finding partners for follow-up projects and networking.
5. Photo slide show
A 200 photo slide show was created to further visualize the whole experience of the SUSTRARES training course and it is accessible here: https://youtu.be/dxu0scGUs44
6. Social Media
Partners utilized their own social media (facebook profiles and pages) to publicize the project and created two facebook groups, one closed and one public, to assist with internal communication and dissemination accordingly.
SUSTRARES public group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1175402785848951/
