“Think globally, act locally!”

Youth workers and young multipliers from 11 European countries gathered for a week in order to share ideas and deepen their knowledge about global sustainable development.

The Erasmus+ project “European Youth for New Media and Global Sustainable Development” was held between 06-13th May 2015 in rainy Münster. The main aim of the event was to give an overview on the current state of sustainable development issues in Europe and support youth workers, leaders and multipliers to successfully approach and disseminate the topic during their daily work and media projects with young people.

National realities were introduced by the youth leaders, as the first session of the programme. Then a wider audience could also follow the event: the debate on global sustainable development was streamed live thanks to the open.web.tv. In order to get a first-hand experience, participants visited the Solarzentrum Münsterland (Solar Centre of the Münster region) where they were informed about the possible usage of solar energy and special solar panel systems.

In the second half of the week, several workshops were guiding the youth workers to the mysterious world of the EU funding opportunity, Erasmus+ and the way, how sustainable development issues can be addressed within these kind of projects, using several online tools, launching social media campaigns etc. E-participation platforms and advocacy toolkits were introduced in order to give some insight and a few examples of good practices carried out by non-governmental organisations.

Young multipliers were trained to introduce sustainable development issues to their peers by using media tools. As an outcome of their sessions, a short video was created about the topic and presented as a peak point on the last evening of the event.

Agnes Horvath