In Spain for a youth project

Earlier this year, the Gaia Education team were busy bees taking part in two 'Youth Action for Nature and Well-being' events in Europe - Spain and Edinburgh. Our youth are facing many challenges surrounding nature disconnection and eco-anxiety, so we are thrilled to be part of a project empowering youth to face these challenges head-on. Helping us all build towards a more sustainable future where the youth are empowered to take environmental action while maintaining their mental health and well-being.

This first piece is a reflection from our E-learning associate and facilitator, Yan Teixeira. 

"The Youth Action for Nature and Well-Being Project is a unique EU Erasmus project that Gaia Education is part of, alongside five other organisations; ECO-UNESCO in Ireland, Resilience Earth in Spain, Rural Parliament in Slovakia, Youth for Smile in Latvia and Ecowellness.

The project consists of developing tools to support young people in overcoming challenges like nature disconnection and eco-anxiety, supporting their actions by enhancing leadership skills and activism (learn more here). The tools are being developed and shared with youth from four different countries in a series of four events.

From February 20th to 24th, the last of the events took place in Olot Catalunya, with more than 30 young participants coming together from different countries all over Europe. The event was a full week filled with activities to experience and provide feedback on one of the project's main outputs: a Toolkit to be accessible to any youth worker and educator.

The activities are branched into six main phases, from knowing yourself to transforming your reality. It was special to experience this as a facilitator and learn from the participants what could be improved in the Toolkit.  Gaia Education and some other partners have deep roots in community building, which is always important when we get together to share goals.

By the end of the week, we had had a deep immersion in community life with tools like group agreements and deeper connection activities.

By the end of the five days, we had the chance to give offers to the land through nature sculptures, which was a fun way for the groups to express and share more of the different cultures. 

We left Catalunya excited to work on the next steps and see all the outputs of this amazing project out there in the world. Stay tuned for more updates about the event in Edinburgh and the project's future for EU Youth."