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Watt's in the socket?

2024-1-DE04-KA152-YOU-0002333752024Mobility of young peoplefinalizedGood practice
Countries: DE|XK|RS|PL|FR · Grant: €49,614
Environment and climate changeYouth employabilityInter-regional cooperation

Objectives

The main aim of this project was to provide a platform to address the topic of environment and sustainability through the lens of electricity and energy. This should be achieved by enabling participants to gain a wide scope of knowledge, skills, approaches and practices that can support youngsters in creating a change in their lifestyle and in their communities. By selecting this topic, we wanted to use the theme which affects everyone around the world, particularly citizens within Europe in times of energy scarcity. At the same time, the topic includes challenges which are very diverse in between the individual situation of the participants, but also among the participating countries of the youth mobility activity. As the topic is so relevant, we wanted to motivate youngsters to join an international exchange and raise their experience and knowledge on sustainability and environment as well as providing space at the same time for intercultural understanding and reconciliation. Our objective was to form a group of youngsters that is not only interested in an international experience or technological topics that were covered throughout the project. We wanted to create a space where youngsters of the target group can meet and share their ideas and experiences about energy and electricity among each other. The aim was to share knowledge about the situation in each individual country, to exchange about difficulties, but also about positive stories that have a benefit for the wider community. Through this, we wanted to provide a platform where we can learn from each other, as well as learn which goals are achievable, which approaches are promising and what did not work out in the different countries. We wanted to provide hands-on experience through study trips to places of electricity generation, including trips to the coal power plants in Germany and Kosovo. Beside that, the experience included a visit to a solar power plant and the DIY workshops, where we built a generator out of a bicycle, and a battery out of copper and iron metal and a potato. Additionally, the participants had the chance to get informed about environmental protection and climate change in general, topics which were covered in several sessions throughout the project including Climate Fresque, introduction to permaculture, session on small hydropower plants and much more. Next to the topic of electricity generation, the topic of consumption and justice was also addressed with a major focus within the activities. The whole project was designed in a way that kept sustainability as an important guideline throughout all planning phases. To address the topic of energy justice, we focussed as well on the question of who benefits from the generation of electricity and who suffers from the impact it has on the environment and society. Another important aspect that we want to mention is that we wanted to be an inspiration and an example for others, to motivate youngsters and showcase what can be achievable by a group of motivated people who come together to work on a common topic. It was our aim to motivate youngsters to participate within the European idea not just during the implementation of the project, but also afterwards by contributing to further projects and organizing follow-up events and projects themselves with our support or the support of their partnering organizations. By this, the project is supposed to accelerate and support the steps towards a more sustainable future in the energy sector and among our society.

Project partners (5)