International Youth Eco-Camp: 8 nations, 1 mission!

International Youth Eco Camp is a youth camp whose main aim is to recognize the role of youth in climate action, provide a platform for young eco-activists to propose initiatives and eco-projects, and support the youth environmental movement. To this end, the camp offers a great platform for young people to raise global awareness and take climate action.

As Türkiye's Youth Climate Envoys Platform, we are excited to support the new steps our young friends will take for climate action in their own countries with our work!

In the first days of the camp, we had the opportunity to introduce our own cultures and discuss the climate crisis from our own perspectives through icebreaker games organized to meet young delegates from other countries. These events helped us unite around a common goal and understand each other better. 

This experience was very valuable in terms of getting to know different cultures, making new friendships, and exchanging creative ideas. It was hopeful and exciting to see how important the results of joint action on climate change would be.

Our main aim of the camp was to address the climate crisis as different nations with common cultures and to assess the situation from the perspective of young people. We had the opportunity to engage in many group activities where we could share our ideas and get to know each other closely.

COP Simulation:

As young people from 8 different nations, we were brainstorming for one task: Tackling the Climate Crisis.

We were divided into groups such as the USA, Europe, China, India, Underdeveloped Countries, and Developed Countries to carry out the simulation study of the Conference of the Parties, where the parties come together every year and develop adaptation and mitigation policies to combat the climate crisis.

While a comfortable meeting table full of food is provided for the USA to represent welfare levels, only a meeting table is provided for Europe, a table and chairs, although not comfortable, for the Developed Countries and for underdeveloped countries, they were given cushions on the ground to sit on.

This was an interesting approach that, at first glance, provided insight into the economic conditions of each group and created a competitive environment. Then, based on the information notes of the groups we were in, we started to discuss how we could develop climate policies and limit the warming in the atmosphere to 1.5°C, as promised in the Paris Agreement.

Of course, while we were talking about the need for our countries to continue to strengthen economically and socially, climate activists were among us to remind us that the Earth is about to run out! “The climate is changing, we can change too!”, “Stop fossil fuel!”, “Protect our future!”

These activists attended our meetings and presented policies they wanted us to implement, and frankly, some of their suggestions were hard to ignore. As young people committed to protecting our shared world, we felt even more strongly that our voices must be heard in decision-making processes. As a result of intense brainstorming, we managed to keep the warming in the atmosphere constant at 1.5°C with the decisions we made as a whole group.

We hope this outcome extends beyond the simulation and is applied in real life!! 

Policy Development Group Work:

We held sessions where we benefited from our cultural commonalities as well as different perspectives by presenting the policies and demands we developed in group studies, with each group addressing a different problem. 

Let's examine how we can advocate for "children's rights to a healthy environment", which is a common problem for all of us;

We, children and young people in Central Asia, Türkiye, Hungary, and Azerbaijan, face serious impacts caused by climate change and pollution, affecting our lives in many ways.

Our Problems:

• Through group works, we examined the problems related to climate changes, including:   
• Lack of recognition by the government, population, and other responsible stakeholders of children as a vulnerable group regarding the effects of climate change and air pollution,
• Lack of child-friendly language in climate policies and documents,
• Poor access to environmental information and lack of awareness among children about their rights,
• Limited access to clean water and sanitation,
• Lack of infrastructures resistant to climate/natural disasters in our living spaces,
• Lack of institutional support in tackling climate change,
• Lack of sufficient funding for youth eco-initiatives,
• The negative effects of air pollution, excessive use of pesticides, and toxic waste on children's physical and psychological health,
• Effects such as sudden temperature changes, heat waves, water scarcity, and soil erosion observed due to climate change endanger food security,
• Waste management practices are not implemented effectively.

Our Solutions and Requests:

At the end of the workshop, we developed our call to Governments and other relevant stakeholders such as Companies, International Organizations, Academia, and NGOs:

• Recognizing that children, especially those living in rural areas and marginalized communities, are extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change and pollution.
• Include a child-friendly version of climate, energy, and environmental documents and policies.
• Accelerating the transition to clean energy,
• Providing training to children about their rights and raising awareness about current environmental problems through media and educational institutions by using gamification techniques in TV programs, documentaries, animations, toys and books,
• Improving waste management practices to reduce health problems caused by pollution by promoting the 5R method (reduce, reuse, recycle, repair, redesign) and the zero-waste concept,
• Improving infrastructure, sanitation, and access to clean water,
• Supporting regenerative agricultural technologies and developing alternative methods to reduce irrigation and soil pollution,
• Providing a fund for environmental initiatives for children and young people,
• To increase the awareness of parents, teachers, and primary healthcare professionals about environmental problems and how to act against them,
• Increasing eco-camps and programs for children, creating communication channels for the sustainability of experience sharing,
• Establishment of an environmental youth advisory board to involve children and young people in decision-making processes, environmental information, education, monitoring, and analysis of the implementation of climate and environmental documents.

Climate Champions Youth Platform:

We recognize that climate change affects all parts of society and understand the crucial role of young people in addressing this issue.  It is of great importance that young people have the opportunity to freely express their innovative and original ideas and be a part of decision-making processes and collaborative efforts.

During the camp, we had the opportunity to get to know the historical and cultural riches of Uzbekistan. We visited important sites in Samarkand and Tashkent and closely observed the local culture. We examined the climate crisis through cultural perspectives observed where countries such as Türkiye, Azerbaijan, and Hungary, along with Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, could unite by acting together. We were once again reminded the crucial role that youth enthusiasm plays in this process.

We explored ways to create a regional platform that could contribute to climate action through workshops and mutual exchange of ideas. We would like to highlight that all participating delegates are highly qualified in their respectable fields and that everyone makes a serious effort in group work to achieve common benefits in line with common goals. As a result of our joint group work, we discovered that all Central Asian countries face similar challenges related to the climate crisis.

We hope to keep our youth platform active in the future by staying in touch and sharing the work we have accomplished with each other, inspiring each other, producing global solutions to our local problems, and acting together to mitigate and adapt to the effects of the climate crisis!

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The event, which was held on the initiative of the Uzbekistan state and in cooperation with the Uzbekistan Ministry of Preschool and School Education, the Youth Affairs Agency, the Ministry of Ecology, Environmental Protection and Climate Change, the International Public Foundation Zamin and UNICEF Uzbekistan, was held between 24-30 June with a program in Samarkand and Tashkent. We came together as participants from Uzbekistan, Türkiye, Hungary, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

We aimed to communicate effectively with the young people in all delegations to promote both our platform as 3 climate envoys and the work we have done as climate envoys in our universities.