In human history, young people have always been the first to stand up for the positive change of narrative in society. The 21st century is no exception.

The UN 2030 Agenda and its “Sustainable Development Goals” are here to deliver improvements to our world in different departments, for example, education, health, clean energy, environmental challenges and gender equality issues. As the new challenges of the modern world seem to be overwhelming, the responsibility of young workers lies in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals for a better future.

The Sustainable Development Generation is led by young leaders. The Erasmus+ Project connected young workers from Portugal, Egypt, Italy, Slovakia, Spain, Jordan and Greece who were taught through non-formal good educational practices about the SDGs. They were involved in the first phase of a 2-phase Training Course from 14th to 22nd October 2021 in Beja, Portugal, while the second will take place from 7th to 14th December 2021 in Cairo, Egypt.

After the end of Phase 1, leaders are asked to implement SDGs in their communities and realities, calibrating short local activities that they will later share and evaluate in Phase 2. In Phase 2 (Cairo, Egypt: 7-14 December), participants will have the chance to evaluate the results and truly practice the skills acquired in the first part.

This project was approved by the Europe for Citizens Program under the reference: 2019-3-PT02-KA105-006472.

More Information: info@checkin.org.pt

Partners

ASSOCIAÇÃO CHECK-IN, Portugal – Coordinator

AGRADO, Italy

ADEL, Slovakia

NEOI ELLADOS SE

EYROPAIKI DRASI, Greece
AYUNTAMIENTO DE RIBADAVIA, Spain

BETTER WORLD FOUNDATION, Egypt

YOUTH ASSOCIATION FOR ENVIRONMENT AND CULTURE, Algeria

AL -EMAD ALKABEER FOR TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT, Jordan

MASTERPEACE, Morocco

Activities

Training Course in Beja

1st Day, 15.10.2021, Getting acquainted

Every fruitful project starts with a good team building. We recognize the importance of the group dynamic, therefore we spent the whole morning session getting to know each other and seeing how the balance of the team is shaping. Of course, in the team building activities we played name games but we took it one step further. We painted our own maps of Europe and discussed where we have connections all over the continent and the partner countries. We pointed out the possibilities of networking and the perspectives of new powerful partnerships.

We also had a creative talk on Erasmus+, but also about how the triangle «information-knowledge-skills» is a useful tool to assess our experience. We closed the day by depicting ourselves as youth workers, we identified our strengths, our knowledge, our values and the sources of support.

2nd Day, 16.10.2021, Starting to approach the concept of SDGs

On the second day we began to approach the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. We agreed that our main objective is to gain a deeper understanding of their importance and figure out a way to implement them in education processes. We made a clear differentiation of what a target and what a goal is. We started to learn the 17 SDGs one by one interactively, through games, debates and discussions. An interesting point was also the SDG Battlefield Game, an amazing tool of grasping how we all can contribute to the 17 goals through small or big habits in our lives. The last activity was focused on portraying national movements on sustainability and we made short presentations.

3rd Day, 17.10.2021, Being the decision-makers

The third day of the project took us really deeper on the idea of SDGs. We started very casually by creating our own activity in order to refresh our memory. The main activity was to create our own planets and calibrate the rules that would run this planet. Four«Bills of Rights» from four different planets were created. Afterwards, we made a negotiation table from representatives of the four planets in a «Intergalactic Conference», where the 10 basic rules that will be valid among the planets had to be discussed and signed. Through this exercise we came to realise how challenging it can be to be in charge of creating the rules of a society and to reach a common ground of understanding between countries. An interesting point was that we saw that ensuring sustainability in our new planets is not that easy as we may have imagined. The afternoon session took place in the public garden of Beja, where the representatives of different UN Agencies had to compete in order to receive financial support by the UN Board. Exciting and creative way to learn more about the processes in the United Nations.

4th Day, The UN Agenda & a positive view on the world

We simulated the whole process of the UN General Assembly in order to redraft the Sustainable Development goals. We played the roles of member states, civil society and UN Agencies. The activity was long and very fruitful. We got to see how complicated and intriguing the process can become and how easily the games of power can lead to dead end situations. Food for thought… In the afternoon session we were divided into our national teams. Our task was to focus on how our country is coping with the SDGs and we had to convince the UN to provide us support for the targets we need to reach. We also had the opportunity to play a quiz game about how well we know the world… The correct answers surprised us! The evening closed with a very interesting and fun intercultural evening!

5th Day, A pause and a conference

A very important process for the productive continuation of the project was the mid-term personal and group evaluation. We remembered the different activities that we did and summarized the main points. We reflected on whether we have reached our personal objectives and prepared some questions regarding the second phase of the week. The discussion that followed put many interesting viewpoints into perspective and the trainers took into consideration our comments and concerns. It was unavoidable to speak about creating actual impact and long-term effect in our communities. In the afternoon we attended an online conference with the UN Communication Office for Portugal in Brussels, where the main points of the UN Agenda 2030 were discussed with Antonio Guterres, who is the Head of the Communication Office. Part of the discussion focused on the ability of the UN to put pressure on governments and companies to become more sustainable and on the new challenges that arise from the fast acceleration of climate change. Joana Bacelar, one of our trainers and Project Executive Coordinator & Manager for the Portuguese Volunteer Confederation and Corpo Nacional de Escutas gave us some insight into the work of the organisations she has been active in. We finished the day with a cultural visit in Beja.

6th & 7th Day, Drafting the actual steps towards change

Wednesday was full of cooperation in the groups. We started by preparing the Local Campaign for every particular country. In the national teams, we tried to figure out ways to promote SDGs agenda in our area. As team members we came up with several creative ideas of possible positive footprint and campaigns. The afternoon was focused on possibilities of Education for Sustainable Development. The meaning of “Taking action” was discussed with emphasis on Conherence, Cooperation, Coresponsibility, Equity and equality, Social justice, Non-discrimination, Participation and Solidarity. The Project continued with some creative brainstorming on making an impact in the real world. We prepared websites, social media content and the artistic promotion of our project. Now, we cannot wait for the future steps!

Next stop???

Egypt!

Local Events

During 2 months (October and November 2021) the participants of the training course in Beja developed 10 Events on Sustainable Development Goals. 20 international facilitators were involved, in 7 different countries, and a total of 160 young participants…. Add more information about the workshops

Training Course in Egypt

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Media

During the SDGeneration project we will share all the materials that are produced and disseminated nationally and internationally.

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