Youth Social Eco-Innovation Digital Lab

<< Background >>Young people and future generations will be the worst affected by climate change. Already, nearly all of the world’s 2.2 billion children have been exposed to at least one climate-related risk – from toxic air pollution to wildfires or droughts (The Climate Crisis is a Child Rights Crisis, UNICEF 2021).Despite their awareness of the green economy and climate change implications, many young people lack the necessary information and support to translate awareness into action at local, national, and international levels. They need opportunities and support to understand and implement solutions to address climate change effectively. Importantly, they need to be given the chance to contribute to creating a sustainable future.Young people in Europe, especially in less advanaced countries such as Romania and Bulgaria need to have open access to free of charge support mechanisms and ways to collaborate with their European peers, as our economies are heavily struggling due to the many crises during the last couple of years and there is hardly any funding available under our Resilience and Recovery plans to support non-formal education.<< Objectives >>1. To foster active citizenship, sense of initiative and social entrepreneurship among young people through providing them with the opportunity, support and tools to virtually collaborate with their peers on eco-innovation ideas and projects, through the development, launch, piloting and validation of an open access digital Lab for young people willing to engage in environmental protection and fighting against climate change.2. To increase the quality, innovation and recognition of youth work through developing and piloting a bespoke online course aimed at building the capacity of youth workers across Europe to foster active citizenship, sense of initiative and social entrepreneurship among young people, to boost environmental protection and fight against climate change, and to address the digital transformation of youth work.3. To disseminate information about the project's progress and achievements, to promote the benefits from enhancing youth workers knowledge and skills to foster active citizenship, sense of initiative and social entrepreneurship among young people, and to raise the awareness on effective approaches and methods to boosting environmental protection and fight against climate change.<< Implementation >>We have implemented all the activities proposed in the project, as follows:-Under WP2Activity 2.1 Design of the LabActivity 2.2 Development of the LabActivity 2.3 Validation and refinement of the LabActivity 2.4 Launching and exploitation of the Lab-Under WP3Activity 3.1 Development of the framework of the training programmeActivity 3.2 Development of the training courseActivity 3.3 Training of the Youth Workers-Under WP4Activity 4.1 Project visual identity and website development Activity 4.2 Online dissemination Activity 4.3 Conducting large international online multiplier event<< Results >>The concrete outputs of our project are:Under WP2-One Lab successfully designed, developed, digitalized and launched-A functional platform for training for youth, with 3 thematic areas and 12 topics-3 focus groups organized in the 3 countries, with 23 participants-59 youth workers selected and involved in the project (23 involved in Focus groups +9 internal trainers from partners + 6 external from BEST + 21 trained by TERRAIII)-60 youth trained and involved into te project (23 Romania + 25 Bulgaria +12 Austria)-7 social eco-innovations developed by the trainees-3 case studies developed (one for each country)Under WP3-One training course, with 8 modules, for youth workers developed, digitalized and launched -3 training courses piloted-32 youth workers selected and trainedUnder WP4-Project website successfully designed, launched and regularly updated-One Social media page successfully set and regularly updated-Number of social media updates - 85 posts on YSEI Fb + more than 30 on each partner Fb, 78k reach, 155k+ views-One contacts database-4 bulletins issued and disseminated-One international multiplier event with 100 participants, distributed online on social media