Training of trainers “Community Challengers: Towards sustainable & climate-smart communities through Arts & Social Entrepreneurship“

The training of trainers for youth workers and educators organised under a project “Community Challengers: Towards sustainable & climate-smart communities through Arts & Social Entrepreneurship“  took place from 7th – 13th of November 2021 in Portimão (Portugal) and it was organised by DYPALL Network.

Twelve youth workers and trainers from the six participating countries had the opportunity to practice the Community Challengers model, experiment with a variety of new tools and acquire the knowledge and skills needed to work with it in the upcoming pilot activities. Within the practices explained by the participants themselves, the group was able to test the “Community Mapping Toolkit”, which helped them to analyse their communities in order to gather information based on the local environment, find out the problems and visualise possible solutions, identifying institutions, associations, companies that could provide potential resources for environmental issues.

Performing and Visual Arts were explored as powerful tools to communicate in an attractive and smart way in order to empower young people for local actions and mobilise their communities. The group learned how to use advocacy tutorials with the aim to provide young people with methods and strategies for reaching stakeholders and policymakers.

Additionally, in the study visit, the group was inspired by how the local youth-led organisation Teia D’Impulsos is active at the environmental level, and took part in a walk organized by the Portimão Municipality with the support of the expert Filipe Bally, who explained the complexity of Alvor’s ecosystem.

The project is based on a 4-step methodology “LACA learning method”:

• Learn about climate change,
• Analyze the community with regards to the environmental and climate issues,
• Create artwork and social entrepreneurial which reflect global and local environmental and climate issues,
• Advocate for their causes using the produced artwork or social projects by involving community stakeholders and policy makers.

It is developed by a consortium of partners: Out of the Box International (Belgium), HDLU Hrvatsko Drustvo Likovnih Umjetnika/Croatian Association of Artists (Croatia), YEPP Italia (Italy), IDEJU MĀJA (Latvia), Supernatural festival (Serbia) and DYPALL Network under the leadership of YEPP EUROPE and it’s funded within the framework of the Erasmus+ KA2 Strategic Partnership for Innovation programme.