"<< Background >>With over a third of the EU27 population under the age of 30, the impact of this generation on Europe’s future, magnanimously put, is gargantuan. History, though, plays a crucial role in determining which societal section and region has the most impact. For today, promulgation of green skills, building up green-savvy ways of life are the best insurance against impending effects of climate change in the face of lethargy.Youth across Europe have gradually taken the onus on them to reduce their carbon footprint. Europe already stands testimony to green ways of life, but as 97% of Europe’s current forests are ‘reforested’, the impact of industrialisation is evident in every sphere of society, from the Ruhr valley in Germany to the Carpathian mountains in Poland to scenic lakes in Luxembourg to the beaches near Gandia and the pine-covered mountain peaks in Basilicata.Youth can positively impact the climate scene. Youth should positively impact the climate scene. This project has been inspired from a delayed COP26 that should have been held in December 2020 in Glasgow. The pandemic has bought people from all walks of life together. Youth in the village and in the city, divided by their surroundings have been united by a passion to react, to act. This project is a joint venture between youth and the environment, between urban and rural settings, between the will to act and actually take the first step.In French, JV can also stand for ‘Jeunes et des espaces vertes’, or youth and green spaces. This is what this project aims to do. Empowering youth with skills, DIY techniques, brainstorming to find solutions to sustainable ways of life, to travel, to use the informatics services, all in the name of climate action.Through Joint Ventures: Jeunes et des espaces vertes, we target:Common values, civic engagement and participationYouth who come together for the training activities, work to produce the results and partake in the multiplier events and other project’s related discussion are those who value working together to improve steps taken towards climatic action. This collective concerted action, both in rural and urban areas is through civic engagement, participation and collaborative work. Increasing quality, innovation and recognition of youth workUp-skilling youth, imparting them green-life skills, capacity building in skills concerning environment, green action, empowering them to act autonomously by providing them with tools and ideas will ensure the decentralised method of action improves quality, the networking across youth will allow them to innovate and the work they do will be recognised at the local, regional and national level.Environment and fight against climate changeThe project’s French title is Youth and Green spaces. This is a joint venture between youth and the environment, among others to fight the issue of climate change. In designing this project, we also target the joint venture between rural and urban communities for the air we breathe is all the same, everyone needs to act, across borders and nations to bring about collective climate action.Other thematics the project addresses are Green Skills, Key Competences Development and Climate-Smart youth.The needs of the partnership in structuring the project has been to concentrate on the transversal strengths of each partner of the consortium. With partners from Luxembourg, Germany, Poland, Spain and Italy, the project caters to the common need to create a resilient society for and with youth.<< Objectives >>The greater objective of Joint Ventures: Jeunes et des espaces vertes is to create healthy, climate-smart resilient societies in Europe by tapping into the youth potential, working transversally across the urban and rural sectors aiding them to improve their existing skills and learn others including organising summer camps and weekend camping-style getaways in nature. We work towards this by doing our little bit through these two training activities bringing learners from across Europe and using this learned material to prepare our outputs, Green-Life Skills: An Illustrative Handbook & Summer Camp Guide for Urban and Rural Europe and Online-Coordination Platform for Youth Summer Camps.The concrete objectives of our project are:(i) capacity-building of youth on green-life skills(ii) refining the attitude of youth towards climate change, through practical examples and long-term impact examples(iii) provide youth exciting ways to contribute tangibly to concerted climate action(iv) impart green-life skills to youth, especially in adherence to WHO’s definition of life skills 'abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life' to aid in green youth work(v) support creation of local summer camps by providing youth a handbook and an online platform allowing youth to network, organise and lead such camps to further involve others in the ‘green-marathon’The battle to own back our future for youth is an existential one. Hence, the ‘green marathon’ is won by supporting small green ideas, projects, support structures, youth organisations, climate-smart activities, climate-neutral modes of transportation, all ushered in through a renewed vigour to address the advocacy and policy part to prod decision-makers to make sound decisions for the future of today’s young generation, to allow them to breathe the air of freedom without fear of climate-induced displacement and uncertainty to enjoy forests, the snow on the Alps or water in our rivers. The appeal to join in the ‘green marathon’ of climate-smart youth towards working one step at a time for better futures for all is central to the activities and the results designed in this project, imparting green-life skills to youth.<< Implementation >>The Joint Venture: Jeunes et des espaces vertes project is a joint venture between two activities in themselves and two results. The activities that we will implement under the auspices of this project are:The first activity is titled: Urban VenturesThe activity focusses on the concerted civic action in urban spaces being held in an urban region. The activity delves on how urban youth can contribute to reducing their carbon footprint through little steps, DIY tricks that youth can do in their homes, on energy-saving techniques, on sourcing energy from verifiable renewable energy suppliers, on motivation to internet-savvy youth to develop greener apps with lesser code, ideas on waste use, waste recycling, reuse and upcycling.The second activity is titled: Rural venturesHere, the participants find themselves in a rural setting and learn about weekend getaways, camping areas or a summer camp. They will come together and work to create some items themselves through hand-on learning activities, like repairing existing public structures, gardens, create items from natural materials like benches, sun shades and learn about composting, gardening, everything that can be done in nature. Participants will also learn on managing summer camps that will allow them to further organise them through the handbook and the online-platform that will be made as part of the results of the project.Implementing these activities allows us to learn from youth, while simultaneously understand them better. We will also be implementing multiplier events in each country to further allow youth in each of the participating countries to positively exploit our results and empower themselves, an action through which we expect youth to engage in more climate-friendly activities in urban and rural areas while also undertaking a renewed interest through clarity to organise, conduct and benefit from summer camps. The multiplier events will be held in Luxembourg, Germany, Poland, Spain and Italy targeting youth, youth NGOs, climate activists, local authorities wishing to undertake activities for youth, among others.<< Results >>The succour we provide to ensuring Joint Ventures: Jeunes et des espaces vertes, its aims and ideals remain sustainable are through our two results:Result 1: Green-Life Skills: An Illustrative Handbook & Summer Camp Guide for Urban and Rural EuropeA picture speaks a thousand words they say. Hence, the partners of the consortium have decided to create a handbook with urban and rural green-life skills to which will be appended a toolbook to conceive, create and run summer camps. The partners Europejskie Forum Mlodziezy ""Fraternitas”, Youth Europe Service and Xeracion Valencia have experience in working on camps for youth, who will support in creating the result so it can be used by others across Europe.Result 2: Online-Coordination Platform for European Summer CampsA platform to search for and coordinate summer camps, that will primarily serve rural woodlands of Europe but will also target semi-urban areas will help the youth groups to network and work on developing green youth work. The platform will have the steps in the handbook available for users on a Europe-wide basis that will help them understand the stages of organisation, implementation and follow-up of summer camps.The long-term impact of the project is:(i) resilient societies ushered in by resilient youth from both urban and rural areas(ii) creation of structures to allow youth to develop their ‘green skills’ to invent innovative solutions to combat climate change(iii) understand the value of reducing the individual carbon footprint and taking actual steps to do it, including a change in lifestyle(iv) using the tips and techniques in the handbook to undertake actual activities, even as a weekend-affair in multiple regions(v) network with other regions across Europe and spread tips, tricks and other ideas on collective youth-led climate action(vi) contribute ideas and to the discussion towards the European Commission’s Europe-wide digital platform for the Conference on the Future of Europe with #TheFutureIsYours(vii) build team-skills and life-skills in youth, as defined by the WHO(viii) awareness-raising on waste use, reduction, recycling and upcyclingTransferability Potential of the two results:(i) To countries that are not involved in this project but have a culture of involving youth in environmental action(ii) Countries and regions that have vast swathes of forests and lakes(iii) Countries, cities and communities tending towards becoming climate-neutral(iv) Additional translations, when commissioned could also help furthering the result’s outreachTo ensure we, as the resilient society of Europe are always on road, running the ‘green marathon’, the project targets small actions, for every big journey begins but with a single step, our project Joint Ventures: Jeunes et des espaces vertes is but one of them."