mijnLeuven "youth climate ambassadors"

The city of Leuven (Belgium) had set herself the objective to become climate neutral before 2030. Leuven Klimaat Neutraal VZW is a partnership of the city, the university, public transport and various industrial, social and cultural organizations. Together they will work for less emission in the city.
Because youngsters are a big group of inhabitants of the city, it is important to engage them too in the aim to become climate neutral. That’s why Leuven KIimaat Neutraal will cooperate with the youth service of the city in the project “Youth Climate Ambassadors”.
In the summer of 2014 an open call is made to Leuven youth: "become youth climate ambassador!". We distribute this call through various channels and we select 12 young people (between 12 and 18 years) in a variety of age, education level, network, ...
These young climate ambassadors explore in various creative ways what the city, businesses, themselves, other young people, schools, families or associations can do to be more sustainable or to live and work, to move, to live more environment-friendlier. They work in pairs around chosen topics. They do research, set up an activity, or test some things in a challenge.
After each item, activity or theme follows a specific media approach, so the theme is widely known not only for the participants, but for the other youngsters in Leuven. By showing what they are doing, they inspire other young people to think about whether to undertake sustainable / environment friendly actions.
The project concludes with policy recommendations for the city, their schools, youth clubs,… And tips and tricks for other young people and their parents.

Specifically:

1. Opening weekend: ensure input from experts for the climate ambassadors.
The project starts with a weekend. During this weekend, there is training and teambuilding. The focus is on environmental and climate aspects. We invite a number of experts with knowledge to give the young people information. Next to that, we focus on the communication skills that we will need during the project. The young people are introduced to various media channels (radio, video, print) and get a basic set of tips and tricks along.
The launch weekend ends with a big brainstorming session in which the ambassadors will decide what they want to do, for the next six months; the challenges itself.

Some examples of what challenges could be:
- Find out what the best way is to go from point a to point b. Which transport-tool scores best at what level?
- Live for a week on locally produced food;
- Find out how sustainable a music festival is;
- Determine the impact of a scout camp on the climate;
- Which school in Leuven scores the best on the climate theme?
- Collect in a week's time as many discarded cell phones and computers and calculate their recycling value.

2. Communication
Each challenge will be communicated in a different way to the Leuven youth. A good communication channel is assigned. For each challenge we work together with local partners like radio station ‘Radio Scorpio’, Local television 'ROBTV', and various magazines.
By doing this and showing what the young climate ambassadors are doing in several media outlets, we manage to reach and involve a big amount of youngsters from Leuven. The ambassadors inspire other young people and their environment to think about whether to undertake sustainable actions in their life.

3. International exchange
Halfway through the project, we are searching for a international partner to set up a short international exchange. At this time, the young people already have experience around the climate issue and they are ready for new input. In this exchange, we go looking for a European city that has a lot of expertise on sustainable living. The aim is to exchange experiences with other youngsters and find new ways to turn Leuven into a climate neutral city.
The international exchange is also an important moment of teambuilding and group formation.
After the exchange, the climate ambassadors restart with new challenges for the next six months . In total each youngster is committed to do (in pair with another climate ambassador) two challenges to a successful conclusion.

4. Final Event
The projects ends with a big closing event where the 12 climate ambassadors publish their findings and experiences in the form of policy recommendations. These recommendations focus broadly on anything to do with the world of young people in the city, school, youth, family ... but also specifically to the partners of Leuven Klimaat Neutraal 2030: companies such as the buscompany 'de Lijn', University, ...

Youth Climate Ambassadors is project in a ‘youth work approach’ with a broad communication aspect. This 'youthwork approach' consists in:
- Sufficient freedom, participation and involvement in the development of the project for the young people;
- A counselor who always stands up for the youngsters;
- A professionally framed process.

In order to reach as many young people we set up a large, broad communication:
- The participants are the young Climate Ambassadors of Leuven. They are the face of this project.
- With these participants we reach only a small segment of the Leuven youth. Thanks to a large, broad communication other Leuven young people will read, see and hear a lot about the project. This will inspire them to think about the climate problem and how they can deal with it as a youngsters and how their behavior may change, or how policy can better respond to this.
- Because the message will come from their peers, it is for young people 'more interesting' and 'more correct' information than the messages of older people (teachers, educators, polticians).

We search a partner who wants to do a similar project in their country and will host us for the - short - international exchange in winter/spring 2015.