The call of the Wild Camps! - Camps to raise awareness on climate change along the Game On! project
“The Call of the Wild Camps!” is a project funded by the International Visegrad Fund which focuses on educating on the challenges of climate change and its links to ecosystem decline in the Visegrad countries. To achieve its objective, the consortium partners will organise International Wilderness Camps targeting young Visegrad citizens (aged 16-25) to raise their awareness and understanding, as well as to build their capacities, in climate communications and advocacy.
Thus, experts will involve the youth in interactive exercises and volunteering actions so to allow the participants in the camps to better learn about the interlinkages of climate change, societies, biodiversity, and ecosystem services — such as the provision of water, food, regulation of pests, or provision of medicines — since these interlinkages will impact mitigation and adaptation efforts (e.g., carbon storage of wetlands or permafrost, the protective role of forests in heavy rainfall, agrobiodiversity in adapting to changing climate).
Lead Project Coordinator: Thor Morante Brigneti, CEEweb for Biodiversity
Contact e-mail: tmorante@ceeweb.org
Background
Recent surveys (OPF 2020, IPSOS 2021) show that only 17% of Czechs, 21% of Slovakians, 32% of Hungarians, and 46% of Polish perceive climate change as one of the biggest problems we face. Still, the same surveys show that education is considered the most important approach for 64% of Slovakians, 67% of Czechs, 85% of Hungarians, and 41% of Polish.
In that line, access to reliable, scientifically grounded and understandable information on climate change and its linkages to ecosystem decline is critical to start understanding the implications of climate change in the Visegrad countries. This aspect must be followed by learning to communicate these issues to wider populations with easy-to-grasp facts, real-life examples, and knowledge, as well as individual actions that can be taken to change lifestyles. Thus, the exchanges promoted within the International Wilderness Camps will help the participants access concrete and critical knowledge on the interlinkages of climate change and ecosystem decline and their relationship with the effects that societies will have to endure in the decades to come.
Goals & Objectives
- Boost the degree of awareness of the challenges and solutions to climate change via a multiplier approach, focusing not only on educating and interconnecting a group of V4 citizens but on preparing them with the tools to become Visegrad flagbearers of the messages to raise awareness and achieve change.
- Connect young V4 citizens under a shared goal: to understand the climate crisis and its effects and interlinkages with ecosystem decline, with an emphasis on the reality of the Visegrad region.
- Create a hub of exchange between the V4 participants to learn about each other’s country-specific problems and challenges, while also understanding the overarching effects of climate change in the Visegrad region and the need for collaborative work.
- For V4 young participants to acquire new skills and tools related to communications and advocacy to further boost the outreach of that which has been learnt during the wilderness camps.
- For V4 young participants to acquire new capacities to understand how their ideas could become functional funded projects in their localities or on a regional level.
Activities
Four International Wilderness Camps: to be organised in Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia and Poland. The camps will include field trips, volunteering actions, and workshops.
Types of services
- Stakeholder engagement
- Awareness-raising
- Capacity-building
Partners
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The project is co-financed by the Governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe. |