International Young Naturefriends Planning Weekend 2012!

The objectives of the activity are to support cooperation of the organizations and volunteers to run international projects; exchange best practices in the international youth work; bring information about possibilities offered by the Youth in Action programme as well as the existing network of International Young Naturefriends. This call is targeted both at the existing IYNF members and interested newcomers. The planning weekend is also a follow up of the Networking Conference – Sustainable Youth Work Meeting. The participants will be able to share their experiences and exchange information on how they used the knowledge, skills and ideas they gained during the Sustainable Youth Work Meeting. They will be able to build on the knowledge they have acquired and basing on their experiences, they will be able to plan how to implement the topic of sustainability further in their actions and activities. Discussions and plans during the Planning Weekend will be facilitated so that they are focused on the topic of local participation for global impact. The participants will be able to share their experiences and discuss issues related to impact and learning benefits of international activities vs. local actions. They will be encouraged to think how to apply the knowledge they gain during international experiences in their local environments and communities. The participants will be encouraged to brainstorm ways on how to increase local impact on various projects, and decrease the negative impact of projects, promoting sustainable consumption and practices within non-governmental organizations. Planning weekend will be based on non-formal education methods like group-building activities, presentations, facilitated discussion through Open Space Technology, action planning and evaluation. We will have various workshops of the following subjects: • Transition movements for sustainable communities and organizations by Lee Brain. Lee currently resides in Prince Rupert, B.C.- Canada and is co-founder of Transition Prince Rupert. He studied psychology, dialogue and sustainable community development at Simon Fraser University. He moved away from the city to his hometown and has found his passion coordinating people to create resilient and sustainable communities. As Lee is attending the Transition Movement conference in London, he will join PW 2012 for two days to share his knowledge on transition movement with us. • Ecological footprint of organizations, reducing the planetary impact through sensible project and organizational management by Janis Brizga. Janis is executive director in Latvian NGO “Green Liberty” and had been consulting various organizations about sustainable solutions in consumption practices. He is co-author of the manual on sustainable consumption and author of various other publications. • Various by You. We expect you to propose a 90 minutes workshop/ activity in the field of youth work and sustainability. Although it is not an absolute must, we would like to create a space for you to share your talents and share competences with other participants. Applicants must be legal residents of the following countries: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Latvia, Turkey, Romania and Poland. If you are residing outside these countries and have a strong interest to take part in PW 2012, please contact us directly. We are able to reimburse the 70% of your travel costs. The most sustainable means of travel are advisable. We will expect you to arrive in afternoon on 12.09. and depart in afternoon of 16.09.2012 If you would like to come and join us for this activity, see attached call and fill online application form until 30.07.2012. If you have any further questions, please contact Ilze at ilze@iynf.org