Workshop at Baltic Conference on ESD in Riga!

Over 120 participants from 12 different countries around the Baltic Sea gathered together in Latvia on 12-14th of December 2014 to share experiences and create new networks of Education for Sustainable Development in the region. (Second Baltic Conference

on Education for Sustainable Development)

Ekolibria was invited as a student-led organization putting ESD in practice in Sweden, and was able to join the discussions with the participants from various backgrounds (teachers, government organizations, business, NGOs, etc.) and to hold a workshop.

As part of this year's conference theme, "Working and Learning Together", participants split in different groups and defined 10 different action-projects, which you can find here.

We were the only students participating, and thus we tried to contribute from our student and youth perspectives.

The aim of the workshop we held was to brainstorm together with workshop participants:

How can we increase the role of youth in ESD around the Baltic Sea region?

9 participants joined our workshop, including teachers and people from international organizations, and also the student volunteers from Stockholm School of Economics at Riga!

After a short presentation about who we are and what Ekolibria's vision is, we began a participatory idea generation workshop, inspired by a method called "Lotus Blossum".

First, participants formed pairs, and developed one idea of HOW to increase the role of youth in ESD and wrote in a circle in the middle of each whiteboards.

After each pair presenting to the entire group, then we develop the 'petals' to this idea. In other words, people went around the room and gave ideas on how each idea could be implemented, and wrote it around the original idea as the 'petals'.

For example, one idea that came up was to "Use Media as a tool for youth-to-youth collaboration".

Other people wrote that using UNESCO Networks, cooperate with international youth organizations and youth-led radio stations could be part of this project.

In the end, each original idea had gotten everyone else's input in how it could develop further.

The pairs went back to their whiteboard to see how their project had developed, and shared with everyone else.

Some very interesting projects came out of this session!

For example:

- To have a series of events and workshops so that students can create plays about ESD

- Create a new action oriented curriculum in collaboration with local actors (e.g. business)

- Use media as a tool for youth-to-youth collaboration (e.g. Youth-led radio, journals, etc.)

- Have political support / connections with politicians for student projects on environmental issues around the Baltic Sea

Thank you to everyone who came to join us to discuss the role of youth in ESD, and looking forward to further developing and implementing some of the ideas that came out with you :)

#ekolibria #conference #riga #Baltic #Youth