Mariza, Young FoE Cyprus
On the 23rd-24th of February, 2021 we had our second Project Partners’ Meeting for System:Reset project. Noting here that the first one was the kick-off meeting of the project in February 2020 and this one was supposed to be held in Ireland.
Despite the virtual nature of the meeting, the overall feeling that left me with was “wow!”. It definitely exceeded my expectations, and I could not be more thankful and proud of each and every one of the people who organised and participated in it!
The purpose of the meeting was for all people involved in System:Reset project to come together, evaluate and reflect on past activities, share experiences and knowledge, reorganise and get ready for the “second round” of the project. I could definitely say it was a successful one, since personally, I feel much more motivated to continue and achieve the final aim; design and demand a just European Green Deal tailored to as many youth voices as possible.
It is difficult to just pick one as my “favourite” session, as they were all enlightening and contributed to the better flow of the 2-day meeting. All sessions were interactive, relatively short and to the point and facilitators were changing, which made it even more diverse and exciting! As a more communication-oriented person I would choose the very last session of the meeting, which was focusing on how to reach communities in resistance from Emma-Jayne from FoE Ireland (waiting for a follow-up session and maybe a public workshop on that!), followed by a personal reflection exercise, single-line drawing meditation – ended up with pretty amazing portraits/pieces of art!
The highlight of the training was without any doubt the escape game, prepared for us with love from NOAH (YFoE Denmark), which got us engaged for almost 2 hours. Imagine playing a game while at the same time managing to collect visions from youth over important social and climate issues! I will not reveal any more “clues”, just stay tuned as we are going to publish it soon!
What is really my takeaway from the second partners meeting is the need for collective work; working together, bonding, sharing our best practises as well as our challenges, creating a safe space, motivate each other and of course have a little fun together <3 A need that emerged even more during the times we live now!
We need to remind each other what we really (really) want (stay tuned for that reference too!) and why are we really where we are at the moment.
What do we want? Climate (and Social) JUSTICE!
When do we want it? NOW!
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If you want to know more about our System:Reset project and our new working group on the European Green Deal, contact us at josef.boraei@foeeurope.org
