The project WHATSALP YOUTH is a project for promoting youth empowerment. The project itself will be mainly carried out by the CIPRA youth council (CYC), while CIPRA International will take care of the project administration and will help the CYC with positive guidance and strategies. The project aims to move CYC one step further so they will not only discuss the important topic but also act on them. Project will increase youth enrolment in project management and will be the next stage in the development of the CYC as a proactive body of the CIPRA. New motivated young people from all alpine countries will be ask to join the CYC and help them build a strong image. Young people will feel an increased motivation to stay active in the Alps, because new ideas are developed also thanks to their contribution and new job opportunities are generated. For youth is important to not only talk about beautiful alpine environment that surrounds them but to be an active part of it. They want to self – identify as active individuals and introduce the fun and challenge of spending time outside. That is why the main activities carried out through this project are a series of three transnational meetings which will happen in three different areas in the Alps in three different alpine countries. On these transnational meetings Whatsalp YOUTH will meet together with Whatsalp, a group of alpine enthusiasts who will hike from Vienna to Nice. They will hike the same route they did 25 years ago and trace the changes that occurred in these years. A perfect environment for exchange of good practices will be created. Youth will have opportunity to hear and learn about the human impact on the environment and the culture of the Alps. Meanwhile adults will have a chance to learn about interactive and effective ways of communicating in the social media age. Exchange will not happen only at the events but more importantly on the hike. Project will enable youth to hike the part of the route together with the adults. In this way the closed and unattractive workshop rooms will be replaced with beautiful open alpine landscape and so the motivation to learn will be much greater. Informal groups will take over media communication activities. They will communicate with the public through local newspaper, already established Facebook page and webpage CIPRA youth council. Here all the documents, important interviews and pictures will be uploaded. Furthermore, a Twitter account will be created. On it people can respond with short replays which provides an open and transparent channel for people to interact with each other without the pressure of responding. This kind of engagement did not existed before social media and it often leads to fruitful direct communication which is in interest of youth.
The "Whatsalp Youth" project had an important significance in the field of youth participation. The project allowed young people to be part of the project "WhatsAlps" and they could expand the boundaries of their own projects and shape it according to their expectations. Young adults co-organised and took part in international meetings in the form of hiking tours, which were held in Italy "Südtirol" (9.7. - 12.7.2017), France "Bardonecchia - Briançon" (1.9. - 4.9.2017) and Liechtenstein "Balzers" (12.1. - 14.1.2018) as well as at the Fusine Lakes at the border between Italy and Slovenia (5.7. - 8.7.2018). The meetings were held at intervals of several months. The date of the meeting was adjusted to the participants. The first two meetings were during the time the long-distance hike, named whatsalp, took place. The last two meetings were aimed at young participants only. The project whatsalp had a goal: to show changes in the landscape and society between 25 years ago and now. The changes were documented and discussed with stakeholders, looking at scenarios from the past and for the future. The project whatsalp was monitored by Swiss Alpine researchers Dominik Siegrist and Harry Spiess. With their extensive knowledge and observations of the Alps, young people have gained a better picture of the current state and needs in the Alps. In this 4 international meetings, young people learned how to organize meetings to collect ideas, to develop their own national projects and to evaluate them. The whole project was attended by six youth groups from six Alpine countries. Each national group decided to carry out a project for which they felt the need in their surroundings. In the selection of the project, the personal interest of participants was also important. Most of the participants were students of the natural science field, which was also shown in the selection of a sustainable project with a touch of awareness and nature conservation, and with the willingness to perform activities outside the four walls. The national projects that were realized thanks to Whatsalp youth are the following: 1.) National team from Germany - organize volunteer work on cultural landscape management in the Bavarian Alps. 2.) National team from Slovenia - educate young people about the problem in national park Triglav and the lake inside the park that is facing eutrophication. 3.) National team from Italy - raising awareness among young people at school about the importance of a clean environment, and negative consequences of waste. 4.) National team from France - «Color hunt» workshop for kids, to woke up the interest for nature. 5.) National team from Austria - video about the problems in the Alps and voices of young people on dealing with it. 6.) National team from Liechtenstein - workshop about landscape and homeland "how the inhabitants of a small country look at it?". More information on the projects are in the documentation under the google docs link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1gnzM-4mu_WVm2ycPytpGbqqSKSD_JB-e The project offered participants a great opportunity to learn independently from the field of project management and the implementation of international meetings. In particular, independent project implementation demonstrated the importance of careful planning of more demanding projects. Which also led to the fact that some projects needed more help that they thought, and some of them more time. Investing a lot of energy into projects has led some groups to continue their activities even after the completion of whatsalp youth project.