The idea of the strategic partnership came across based on the demands on all of our local levels and in the international level when we previously met and worked together. During the annual evaluation of the partners- the members of the participating organizations wished to cooperate more on international level, and involve more the young people in the approach change process. It means more active participation for the young people, in order to pick up the habit of conscious thinking and acting even in the every days. Generally speaking, the only educational contact to the nature for the youngsters is the so called "forest camp", or "camp school". It is a great non formal learning process for the youngsters to get first hand experience with the nature, and not only see animals, and plants in the school book, but by spending some quality time in a national park, or other natural environment, they gain their own experience by touching and feeling the nature. This project would aim to prolong this experience and give the youngsters opportunity to keep and practice this open mindset in the every days as well. our aim to make this a multi level project, where we would like to reach our end-goal of prolonging this experience for as many youngsters as we can, by educating people who are in direct contact with them by enabling them to work as effectively as they can. This could be reached by strengthening their facilitation and coaching competencies through the horizontal topics of human-ecology, sustainable development and environmental consciousness. The previous experiences are that even though there are plenty of people who do facilitation, but only a few have the actual skills, experience and knowledge on how really facilitation work. It is very important that all the participating organizations work attitude is mindful and conscious. This project aims to change this, by train 40 international youth leaders, with coaching. In the youth field, and in the non formal education as it is, facilitation is one of the most important role in order to make the activity flow perfect. The other aim of the project is that they by gaining these skills and methods of the environmental consciousness approach, they could be so called mediators to the indirect target group, the fellow youngsters to whom the cochies will make the local activities. Through the local activities, what every partner will organize in order to make the participants practice the participant are going to teach and explain to their peers why is it good to think a bit before we act, or think a bit about the consequences globally about our daily decisions. This message is important, to make awareness in young age already that in our daily routine everything has some global impact, and we are only one part of the whole, global every days. The uniqueness of this project is that it would give the holistic approach to the youngsters about environment and sustainability, not only the general facilitator methods by using an e-learning platform, which makes it easier for today´s younger generation, which has been growing up in a digital era, to reach this knowledge and develop the required competencies from all over the world. This is what we would like to give to the youth leaders as well as the youngsters who will participate in the project in general. It is a very important goal of the project to raise awareness even in such early age as elementary school to live our life more environmental consciously, to think about the consequences of our daily acts, to think beyond the products we purchase, and to think about why and what do I do, and what is the consequence of it in the global system. Do I really need a branded pair of shoes for the price that it actually cost globally, or what I really need is a pair of good quality and durable piece? Through this strategic partnership we would like to raise the understanding and the systematical thinking of the youth leaders, and the methods they will use in order to become facilitators will direct specifically this wholeness and mindfulness. The other aim of the project is, by train these 40 youngsters, to have an international group of young facilitators who are able to work and cooperate in the partner organizations' life on local and international level. This would be the capacity building part of the project which was another desire and demand from the members and partners. It is rare to find experts who are equally qualified as a facilitator and as expert on sustainable development. With this project we would like to fill this gap. Fortunately ,not only in these organizations but through the world there are more and more need of these people so actively using the trained youngsters will not be a problem in the future, and we can keep this project sustainable in the long run.
The project duration was 2 years. From planning to executing the whole idea was a complex and interesting learning process for everyone. The background of the project was the common understanding of the eco aspect that all partners consider as a high priority in their daily work, and the focus on developing the skills of the young people. The project came alive by the common desire and recognition that facilitation as a skill is needed in youth work, but what was our special focus and innovative approach is, to combine the skills of facilitation with the deep focus on the sustainability, and eco aspect. Eco aspect means the mindset and approach towards our environment, and the connection to the surroundings and closer and loser environment around us, where we live in. In the youth field, and in the non formal education we consider facilitation is one of the most important role in order to make the activity flow perfect. We saw that there are plenty of people who are facilitators, yet not all of them understand fully the complexity of facilitation. We did our best to prepare and pass our knowledge and experience on facilitation to participants. Our objectives were improving youth work, and provide cross sectoral cooperations between local schools and NGOs. During the activities we gave the experience and knowledge to the participants to learn the skills of facilitation, and also take home the eco and sustainable approach. We managed this by training 40 both leaders with a tailor made content on the methods of facilitation, in theory and practise and also keeping a special focus on the environmental mindfulness. Besides the training, we provided personalised coaching to each of the participants. It meant a regular check up, and support, and preparation for their local activities, as well, answering all their questions regarding the horizontal topics we touched such as human-ecology, sustainable development and environmental consciousness. One of the results of the project was that during the local activities, the participants practiced their facilitator skills by teaching and explaining to their peers why is it good to think a bit before we act, or think a bit about the consequences globally about our daily decisions. This message is important, to make awareness in young age already that in our daily routine everything has some global impact. The uniqueness of this project was, besides the environmental friendly approach, and focus, but also the combination of the physical learning, and the online learning as well. After the training, the participants kept in touch and shared their experience on the blog, and in the Facebook group. The feedbacks were positive about this shared follow up method. The local activities were also big success. There was a big variety of the activities, from smaller workshops till participation on festivals. Even though the activities were different, but the aim was that the participants could facilitate the event, and at the same time share their knowledge about sustainability and environmental mindfulness with their fellow peers. This happened successfully in almost every case. The coaches had to help in many cases to find the right activities, and sometimes pair up some participants with each other. In some partner organisation the local cooperation was stronger than in others. This was also a big learning for us as coordinators as well, as partner selection. As 2 intellectual outputs we created a tangible guidebook with numerous methodology, as well as an online platform, that functions on mobile devicese as well as on computer. There was some last minute changes in the second intellectual output, after testing the usability. In the last minute, after running testings, that we change the form of the online surface, from a mobile application, to an online platform, that can be used both on the mobile devices as well as on the computer. Impact wise, we are happy to say that we have managed to meet our primarliy impact goals, on the participants, on the partner organisations, as well as on us, and also already see the impacts on the indirect audience as well. We measure the impact during the project on the participants, and by constant feedbacks to each other, we also followed the development on the partnership as well. We gain knowledge about the indirect participants, by their reach out, and feedbacks we have gotten already, by want to use our intellectual outputs, and also we got invitations for future collaborations as well.