Forest resilience and protection must be a priority to ensure their long-term maintenance. Continuous cover forestry (CCF), or close to nature foresty, is a proven solution to make forests more resilient, but it faces a strong resistance as well as a lack of skills and knowledge. ‘TraineeForChange’ aims to show forestry students an alternative forest management system for more resilient forests and to make them aware of the importance of their role to raise public awareness. This way of managing forests requires students to invest time and effort in continuous learning and training during their whole careers. This project is based on two complementary axes: an intensive one-week course for young forestry students and a communication campaign to raise public awareness.

The project partners agree on the fact that while most of the activities they carry out often reach an already sensitized audience, achieving the SDGs will only happen if as many people as possible get on board. So, how do we reach a wider young audience? To answer this question, the project partners decided to create an attractive tool about the SDGs and that is how the ‘Escape game’ was born – an innovative and playful solution to pick the interest of young people and encourage then to play an active role in the ecological and social transition. An ‘escape game’ is an immersive and collaborative game, in which teams made up from 2 to 6 people have to solve enigmas in a limited time to escape or accomplish a mission.

‘Greening Gratte’ deals with inclusion through sustainable leisure. The project brings together young people, both non-disabled and with mental disabilities, from different socio-cultural backgrounds and aged between 15 and 35 years old, on the topics of migration and climate change. The objective is to raise awareness of the SDGs through an “SDG course” composed of theoretical sessions given by Empreintes and Mentor-Escale as well as hands-on activities in order to turn those SDGs into concrete actions. The project will end with an eco-responsible summer camp organised by and for the participants and during which they will work on the creation of media content with Média Animation. A closing event will also be organised. The ecological transition must be an inclusive transition that leaves no one behind: that is the project’s ambition.

‘WE WIELS’ – a contraction between “we will see” and “we will” – highlights the link between the discovery by sight of new forms and things and the actions that we take for the future. Young people will explore contemporary art works together with elders. Do the art pieces stir up emotions or memories? What causes is this artist committed to? Does this particular cause seem just ? What if the youths were given the means to create a work of art: what particular cause would they defend? And how? The project will provide time, space and opportunity to talk about all this. The young people of WE WIELS (including children and youths who dropped out of school and unaccompanied minors) will find a common cause and commit themselves artistically for it with the complicity of Forest’s senior citizens. The result will be revealed in the summer of 2023 during the Park Poetik festival. WE WILL SEE…

Nowadays, and especially since 2020, we have no choice but to learn how to cope with chaotic changes, be they climatic, economic or social. Knowing how to live with uncertainty would be an essential skill to get through our times. In response to this unprecedented situation, ‘Feu sur la banquise!’ invites 16 young people to meet those who, today, continue to hope, seek, imagine, cross, support, protect, build, understand or experiment. With the help of experts, these young people will be invited to produce several podcasts based on their own doubts and hopes. Like the penguin that has no choice but to find solutions to adapt to a dramatically shrinking territory, the youths will look for the most accurate and powerful tone together to talk about life, our times and what is worth trying when the icecap is melting down.

‘Terre de diversité’ encourages young people, both Belgium-born and newcomers, to meet and work together on ecological transition by participating to environmental volunteering activities and training weeks. The project aims to actively involve dozens of young people who will be accompanied by professionals from the youth and environmental education sectors. It will also benefit from the support of partners active in the welcoming of foreigners. More concretely, the project will make fields evolve into permaculture and ecological transition initiatives pop up in North-Luxemburg (BE). Thanks to the press and social media, this project will spread a positive message about migration and invite people to take action for an open and sustainable society.

Migration is often framed in a stereotypical way by the media and in politics. This framing leaves too much room for the off-screen and makes it therefore difficult to form a complete and nuanced picture of the topic. Indeed, whether in communication, journalism or photography, framing limits the visual perception while translating the world around us. ‘Hors-champ’ is an invitation to get rid of preconceived ideas and look through other glasses by getting to know what migration is, here in Belgium but also “over there” where reality can be quite different. With the help of photography and social media, the project wants to make this sharing of views more widespread and leave a minimum of room for the “off-screen”!

‘La jeunesse au micro pour un monde plus juste’ aims to provide young people with background, critical reading and technical tools to help them take ownership of their own engagement by producing a podcast on climate and migration justice. Participants from various CSOs in Wallonia will compose teams and make audio recordings based on their own discussions as well as their encounters with young migrants and citizens from their cities. Project partners as well as experts will provide guidance and support to the youths so that they can analyse, clarify and bring within everyone’s reach some issues related to climate change and migration. The podcast will be broadcast on both local radio stations and the internet.

The City of Tournai has been working for several years on the topic of migration together with local associations. ‘Tournai le monde’ is further contributing by promoting better knowledge on the topic, the development of critical thinking among young people and their active participation in society. To achieve these objectives, young people will participate between February and November 2023 in music workshops, a mural creation, intercultural meetings, a media education workshop and a public event. All those activities will provide young people with the necessary tools to understand migration and express themselves freely on this subject.

‘Le son qui dérange’ was born out of a threefold observation: young people are minimally aware and informed about the challenges of climate change but they lack concrete resources to act and do not have equal opportunities to take action. Therefore, it is important to give them the opportunity to understand how each and every one of us can play a part, while acknowledging that climate change is exacerbating inequalities. The project partners will mobilise their networks to bring a group of young people together in Brussels to work on the themes of climate justice, social justice and transition during a 5-day training session. That week of meetings and exchanges will give the young people the reflexive tools to launch investigations, with the help of GSARA and their expertise in sound recording and editing.