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“Young people have done wonders to bring the climate crisis to everyone’s attention, but asking questions isn’t enough,” claims a spokesperson for a transnational project, set up to help in the climate action fight. “Young people now have to direct that same energy into helping to find the solutions. They can’t afford to simply complain and then leave it to the older generations.”

The ‘Solution Not Pollution’ project is a collaboration between organisations in Ireland, France, Germany and Czech Republic.

“What young people have helped to create is a willingness to change the way we do things but it can be hard for people to know what changes to make,” said the spokesperson. “This project is about providing information and creating tools that youth workers and the young people they work with can use to bring their enthusiasm, skills and bright ideas to the fight for climate reversal.”

The Solution Not Pollution Project, funded by the EU, has a two-year plan which will see the development of training and education resources which can be used in a youth work context to help build critical thinking and social entrepreneurial skills.

“Climate action has to happen throughout society – from the individual making changes in her or his daily life to businesses and governments radically changing the way that they do things,” explained the project spokesperson. “Young people have clearly demonstrated that they have a crucial role to play and, with radical changes come opportunities. Part of the Solution Not Pollution project’s aim is to help identify social entrepreneurship opportunities and to support young people in being at the centre of a new, environmentally responsible future for our society and, ultimately, for our planet.

Solution Not Pollution is a project funded by the Erasmus+ programme that started on the 1^st of February 2020. The project brings together 4 European partners: Future In Perspective Limited from Ireland (the project coordinator), Solution: Solidarity & Inclusion from France, AKLUB from Czech Republic and JKPeV from Germany.

The project lays on the belief that if we want to fight pollution we need to overtake structured effective actions on an individual and collective level aiming at changing people’s habits, adopting more environmentally friendly patterns of production and consumption and finding solutions to the climate change challenge we all now face.

The main objectives of Solution Not Pollution are:

• to promote quality and innovation in youth work by building the skills of youth professionals to support them to address climate change issues;
• to empower young people by building their critical thinking skills especially where climate change issues are concerned;
• to promote online and social entrepreneurship among young people by presenting the climate change challenges that face our society as business opportunities.

The project partners believe that education has a critical role to play if the protests of young people are to be leveraged into action and youth work in its many formal, informal and non-formal interventions is the perfect starting point to set the challenge to today’s young people to think of solutions to reduce the many pollutions that contribute to the pace of climate change. For this reason, Solution Not Pollution will develop the following resources:

1. an in-service training programme for front-line youth service providers to support their continuous professional development;
2. a suite of 24 WebQuest challenge-based educational resources for young people interested in the issue of climate change;
3. a bespoke curriculum for online and social entrepreneurship for young people who may be interested in further developing their sustainable ideas into online businesses or social enterprises.

The first meeting of the project partners will take place in Paris on the 20^th February, 2020. Once all partners have met, we will be in touch with you to let you know our plans for the first six-months! To get in touch with us in the meantime, find us on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/solutionnotpollutionproject