In this blog post, Marlene Hirt reports on her volunteer work for the Erasmus+ project System:Reset
We – that is Anna Haselsteiner, Nehir Karakas, Judith Neumann and I – are the project group of GLOBAL 2000/Friends of the Earth Austria as part of System:Reset. And of course Joschka Brangs from the activists and action team, who always supports the four of us with words and deeds.
As part of the project, we regularly organise and host two-part workshops that take place online due to the Covid-19 situation. In our workshops, we exchange ideas with participants about the future of the EU and collect their ideas and visions for a social and climate-just Europe. In this way, we create a space to make different voices heard so that they are increasingly included in the political decision-making process.
System:Reset Online Workshop
My role in this project so far has been to tell the participants about the European Green Deal, to discuss it with them and to collect their ideas and suggestions for improvement. We especially want to raise awareness that there are different perspectives on a climate-just future depending on one’s own social position and experience, and that our own perspective often has blind spots that we can only recognize through exchange with others.
In addition to the massive reduction of CO2 emissions, there needs to be at least as strong a reduction of all forms of discrimination. After all, the good life for all must truly include everyone!
After each workshop, I take care of documenting the most important results and making sure everything gets put in place. At the end of the project, the many great ideas and suggestions from the participants will be handed over to EU representatives at the UN COP26 climate conference to further develop the discourse around the European Green Deal.
I probably speak for everyone in my project group when I say that despite their online nature, holding the workshops is a heartwarming activity, especially in times like these when you don’t get to interact much with other people otherwise. I notice during each workshop that the participants are people who bring so much interest, ideas, heart and innovative spirit to the discussions that I have the impression I’m already sitting in one of those future-proof visions.
So far, we’ve held seven workshops and will continue with 3 more in May. Even if there are different faces each time, all the participants have one thing in common: the will to make changes in a more social and climate-friendly direction for the whole society in times of climate crisis. This is encouraging and I am already looking forward to seeing the new faces in our next workshop.
