Iwan from Bundjugend/Young Friends of the Earth Germany
The morning meeting started with congratulations to our friend Max on his birthday and a quick run-through of the main activities for the day ahead.
After that we continued with a free skill-sharing session. One of these seminars was about Land Art. In Land Art the participants create all kind of art using only the materials mother nature offers you. Some of the examples we produced included clay masks, globes made of grass and wooden figurines.
As the skill sharing went on it began to rain, and so unfortunately the next three hours of the program were rather wet.
Although weakened by the rain, we continued with the capability booster seminars – I attended the one on ‘fantastic facilitation’. It was the second out of three, and the main points were the different kinds of ways to lead workshops as a facilitator, ways to emotionally interact with participants, and encouraging them.
After lunch there were more sessions to choose from on food and agriculture issues. There was one about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – or TTIP – and how it threatens European food safety standards. Ivo from Za Zemiata explained the possibilities, dangers and the different ways of explaining the situation between the different political systems.
Later in the day we moved on to the Go out & Play session, where we could do sports like canoeing, climbing, biking and swimming. This went on until the final evening sessions, where participants could share more skills and do some more teaching about the things that they were inspired by – including barefoot running and the power of images in campaigning.
As ever, the day ended with another group dinner as the sun set over the lake.
Andrea from Natur Og Ungdom Young Friends of the Earth Norway
What is skill sharing?
So it’s Sunday today, and if you are from Bulgaria you’re probably hungover and resting from a weekend of partying. I think this would be true for most of the European countries that are represented here. However, far, far away in the mountains of Rhodope by a lake called Beglika, we had skill-share workshops.
Among our many choices were land art, juggling, and creative campaigning. If you wanted to create beautiful surroundings with natural materials, you could join the land art session. If it had been a long time since you’d last impressed someone, you should definitely have joined the juggling experts.
Out of curiosity, I wanted to know more about creative campaigning. We gathered together in a crowd, and Camilla, the workshop leader, asked: “who would define themselves as ‘creative?'”?
I squeezed my eyebrows together and thought that I definitely wasn’t. Camilla explained that everyone is creative, and we all just have different ways of applying it. As we all jumped into this unknown sea, I realised – it’s all about unlocking your brain.
Through creative campaigning I learned to be confident in myself, and not to let any challenges stop me from following my passion. I learned that I am a part of an historical process, surrounded by great idealism and that we can still have fun while we pursue a sustainable life.
While we are sharing some similarities between our cultures at Summer Camp, we also have our differences. Still, sharing skills is about how we can all benefit from clever strategies and learn to think differently.
The recipe for a perfect creative campaigning skill share:
Ingredients:
– 3 open-minded people, minimum
– 1 problem you really want to solve
– 3.5 teaspoons of note paper
– 500 ml of energising activities
– 9 tons of motivation
– 7 tons of solutions to obstacles that you may face
Hopefully this recipe will help you to create an amazing campaign, but remember this is only a guide and you should make your own adjustments depending on what you need to get done. Who knows, maybe you will be the one sharing skills at the Summer Camp next year?