From Youth Climate Voice to Youth Climate International Action – Austria

The main goal of this workshop was to improve our skills in creating environmental online campaigns and then to actually start one such campaign, but during the course of the week, we have learned much more than that.

 

The project took place in Tauchen-Schaueregg, a very remote place in the Austrian mountains. Although the village didn’t offer many amenities, it was in the middle of the mountains full of beautiful natural landscapes, part of which we managed to explore during a short trek. 

 

During the official program, we had lectures from the facilitators in person as well as from invited experts over Zoom. In addition to the lectures, we also had plenty of practical group work, culminating in the design and preparation of our own creative environmental campaign, which we called “chaotic cooking”. We used the skills we gained during the two official courses as well as the in-between online sessions to plan the campaign, which focused on explanation of environmental topics, such as food waste, plastics consumption, recycling, etc. through food preparation videos.

 

Apart from the official program, an important part of the course was the interpersonal communication and cultural exchange, as there were people from many diverse countries taking part. Having this many cultures meet in one place and being able to exchange our insights between each other has been truly enlightening, and even with this much diversity between us, we were able to find unity, respect and friendship for each other.

 

Participating in this workshop has been a very positive experience, with me not only learning new skills, but also being able to pass my knowledge to other participants, cooperating on the constructive team effort and building new friendships. Overall I am very happy that I was able to participate in this course!