A month after the 2014 Young Friends of the Earth summer camp in Bulgaria finished, the organising team reflects on some of the successes, challenges, and other experience from a week in the Rhodope mountains.
Building our network
For more than three-quarters of those who came to the summer camp, it was their first time at a Young Friends of the Earth (YFoEE) event, and their first experience of spending an intensive week living and learning with a big group of international environmentalists. This is really important to us! Our summer camp is the one event we run each year where our focus is on bringing together as many new, local activists from the YFoEE network together as we can, giving our national member groups a chance to send activists to build their skills, knowledge and motivation for YFoEE to take back home with them.
Read Andrea from Norway’s blog on skill sharing here
Trying to organize a programme that is going to cater for such a diverse group of people (coming from 20 different countries, with different levels of English language skills, knowledge and experience of environmental issues and activism, and also levels of confidence) is one of the biggest challenges we face when organising and running the programme. It takes a surprisingly long time. Many months of Skype calls are required to think and re-think all the sessions, methodologies and ‘ground rules’ we need to create a welcoming and participatory culture at the camp, and which will help meet the hopes, needs and expectations of all 50 people who come!
One morning towards the end of the camp, we ran a ‘building our network’ session, where we used the World Café methodology to share ideas and get input on three questions to help us grow and strengthen further as an organisation. We pretended to be sitting at tables at a nice café, mingling and chatting with our friends about those existential questions in life, taking notes and doodling on the ‘tablecloths’ as we went along.
The questions we asked ourselves? Why work as the YFoEE network? What can YFoEE do to better support groups on a local level? How can your groups contribute to the YFoEE network?
And the results? 20 pages of flipchart paper! That we’ve since taken home and typed up into feedback on what we can all do to make YFoEE stronger, and as a nice reminder of why our network and work is already so powerful.
For more on how the ‘building our network’ session went, check out Elena from Macedonia’s blog
Nature, participation, equality and interculturalism
There was a general air of inclusiveness and open participation at the camp, which was testament to the meticulous planning described above, but certainly helped by our location.
The landscape itself played a key role: instead of holding workshops in conference rooms with podiums, microphones and nametags, we were sat in a circle in the forest. We ate together, washed up together, slept in tents next to one another, and spent our free time together without the distractions of phones or a sense that we ought to be somewhere else. While private space was respected – there was no pressure on those who wanted some time alone to be constantly involved – the atmosphere quickly became particularly friendly and inclusive.
The spectacular surroundings also helped. It was refreshing for many of us to be able to continue our conversations about environmental challenges and mobilisation in a situation where were reminded of many of the reasons why we were having them in the first place. For others it was the first time they had camped, let alone somewhere as remote and pristine as lake Beglika, and their reactions were enthusiastic and heartening for the future of the network.
The all-day nature hike on Day 5 of the camp brought this home – see Rady from Bulgaria’s blog here
This setup was vital in helping participants from different backgrounds and of different genders feel comfortable participating freely in activities, workshops, and around the camp in general. Yet a lot of work went into making the sessions as inclusive as possible. Many participants volunteered to act as ‘listening ears’ that other participants could approach in confidence if they experienced problems around gender or cultural equality. As an organising team, we felt this was important both in helping the camp run smoothly as well as projecting the kind of world that we are campaigning to achieve.
Read Dora from Croatia’s reflections on the equality and interculturalism work at the camp here
Lessons learnt
As the organising team, I think one of the nicest pieces of feedback we got from people was the reflection on how well prepared the camp and programme was. This was really nice because we really did spend an intensive four months together on two hour-plus fortnightly Skype calls, pulling out our hair over all the elements of organising the camp to perfection, but becoming a strong team and building supportive friendships in the meantime.
Each year we are getting better and better at organising our events, despite new and different volunteers each year making up the organising team, and us starting ‘from fresh’ to organise each event.
Our top priorities for YFoEE are to support the local and national YFoE and FoE groups (strengthening their campaigns, groups and activists) and secondly to develop the structure and practices of YFoEE to be true to our values of equality, interculturalism and participation. Feedback and lessons we learn from events like the summer camp go directly into organising the next event or project, and get captured into things like our ‘How to organise a YFoEE event’ handbook, and our ‘manifesto for equality and interculturalism’, two pieces of work currently being drafted by us and that help us capture our learning and ways of working that support these priorities.
We’re already starting to work with Friends of the Earth France to plan our next year summer camp, and are looking for volunteers to get involved in the organising team or share further feedback and suggestions of how to run this event. Get in touch if you’re inspired to join our team!
Friends of the Earth Europe gratefully acknowledges financial assistance from: Education, Audiovisual & Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) and European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe. The contents of this website are the sole responsibility of Friends of Earth Europe and cannot be regarded as reflecting the position of the funders mentioned above. The funders cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information that appears on this website
