Flourish! A Youth Learning Journey towards Climate Resilience and Regeneration
Flourish! is a learning journey for young adults who are suffering from anxiety and grief because of the climate emergency. Flourish! offers a regenerative approach, and supports participants in building their inner resilience, as well as the resilience of their communities and ecosystems to the climate and biodiversity crises. Its success rests on fostering a sense of belonging to a transnational learning, caring and doing community, engaged in a deep social and ecological transformation.
Cross-border/international
Germany
Other
The learning journey took place online and was attended by yound adults from all over Europe, but also the Americas, Africa and Asia
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Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organization, in partnership with other organisations
Name of the organisation(s): OneResilientEarth gGmbH Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Laureline Last name of representative: Simon Krichewsky Gender: Female Nationality: France Function: Founder and Executive Director Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Hohenzollernstrasse 15 Town: Bonn Postal code: 53173 Country: Germany Direct Tel:+49 178 6077725 E-mail:laureline@oneresilientearth.org Website:https://oneresilientearth.org/
Flourish! a Youth Learning Journey for Climate Resilience & Regeneration has grown the inner resilience and regenerative capacities of 270+ young adults based in Europe and beyond, who reported enhanced wellbeing, creativity, connection to nature, sense of belonging, and motivation to address the climate crisis through collaboration and transdiciplinary work.
Forty-six percents of European youth rank climate change as their ‘top worry’ and 59% of youth worldwide are ‘very’ or ‘extremely worried’ by climate change. With the support of the Emergence Foundation and multiple artistic and academic partners, One Resilient Earth offered 270+ young adults (18-28 years old) a free online learning journey which mobilized experts in the fields of eco-psychology, mindfulness, futures literacy, regenerative agriculture, as well as Indigenous knowledge holders. It included a series of online workshops that covered the following themes: (i) understanding unavoidable impacts of climate change, including on emotional and mental health, (ii) envisioning just, biodiverse, climate-positive, climate-resilient and regenerative worlds, (iii) confronting climate colonialism, (iv) staying with the trouble, the interdependency, and the not-knowing, when engaging in climate action, and (iv)nurturing caring relationships, creativity, collaboration, and learning communities. Throughout the series of workshops, artists and artworks were mobilized to facilitate dialogues, enhance creativity and facilitate collaboration.
In addition to providing knowledge and tools to grow resilience through regeneration, Flourish! gave young adults access to a transnational online community, supported by care practitioners from the Climate Psychology Alliance. The success of Flourish in fostering inner and outer transformation rests on providing a sense of belonging to a transnational learning, caring and doing community, engaged in a deep social and ecological transformation.
mental health
climate resilience
youth
regeneration
transdiciplinary
A key objective of Flourish! was to support the restoration of local ecosystems to avoid, limit and address the combined effects of the climate and biodiversity crises. Hence, the Flourish! online workshops illuminated the benefits of nature-based adaptation, and regenerative solutions such as regenerative agriculture and rewilding to enhance the climate resilience of ecosystems and communities, sequester carbon and restore biodiversity. Youth learnt from climate scientists, regenerative agriculture and permaculture practitioners, as well as Indigenous knowledge holders. In between workshops, participants were invited to engage with local place-based initiatives aiming at ecosystem restoration.
In addition, Flourish! encouraged a questioning of ‘sustainability’ as understood and performed in the Global North by introducing the perspectives of Global South experts, Indigenous knowledge holders, and of the Gesturing towards Decolonial Futures collective. Addressing colonial continuities in sustainability and climate action enabled participants to engage with the root causes of the ecological crisis, and to grow their imagination in relation to climate-resilient, biodiverse and regenerative futures. Participants were encouraged to address climate injustice and environmental racism weighing on marginalized groups, as well as to learn from multiple complementary knowledge systems when rethinking and practicing sustainability.
Last, regaining a sense of belonging with a community of learners, but also with nature and the more-than-human word was critical to addressing climate anxiety and eco-grief throughout Flourish! Time in nature between workshops, evocative artworks, and the sharing of some Indigenous Peoples’ values and practices were critical to fostering a sense of belonging by triggering emotions of joy, awe and wonder regarding the natural world. This approach intended to deepen a collective commitment to nature preservation and regeneration.
Visual and multimedia artworks created by young European artists have shaped the aesthetics of Flourish, from the graphic design of our communication material and educational slides, to the layout of our online community platform, and the animations in our short-video series. The aesthetics of the initiative reflected the choices of the young co-designers’ team, and evolved through the project by integrating artworks of the participants, including mycelium sculptures.
Moreover, each online workshop wove together the insights of experts and powerful artworks of artists and art collectives such as Marshmallow Laser Feast, Superflux Studio, Maureen Gruben, Patricia Piccinini, Amy Meissner, Kiyo Gutierrez, or Sofia Crespo who have been exhibited in the Barbican, MAK Wien, NXT Museum, Anchorage Museum, the Museum of the Future in Dubai, or shown in fairs such as Art Basel Miami Beach. In addition, Dom-an Macagne, a traditional nose-flute player from the Applai tribe in the Philippines performed for the Flourish! participants, and delivered a message of healing and belonging to the natural world in the opening. Alois Reinhardt, a lead actor at the Theatre Bonn in Germany also invited participants to draw and perform symbols to explore climate emotions, leading to a collective artistic creation.
The Flourish! experience was designed to welcome all the participants’ emotions in a safe space, thanks to the support of mental health experts and care practitioners associated with the Climate Psychology Alliance in the UK. The latter provided one-on-one emotional support in break out rooms during online workshops, and were reachable for sessions in between workshops. The online community platform further invited the sharing of emotions, insights and artistic creations with the group. The safety of the care team enabled participants to feel supported, heard and seen, which greatly enabled inner and outer transformation.
Flourish! was accessible free of charge for young people from 18 to 28 years old, based in Europe and beyond. The language was English to facilitate a wider reach among students who have internet access, leading to participation from South-Asia, East-Africa as well as the Americas. All the workshops’ recordings were available on the community platform to facilitate engagement. A short video-series capturing the key messages of Flourish and sharing awe-inspiring artworks was also released on YouTube. This ensures that all people suffering from eco-anxiety and eager to engage in transformative action towards climate resilience and regeneration can have access to our core content. Besides, our online platform is open and can be joined by individuals who would have questions or require extra support after watching the videos. The community platform offers significant information on the emotional and mental health impacts of climate change, as well as learning material on climate resilience and regeneration, and peer support for all.
Flourish! was co-designed by 12 young people led by Autumn Trainor, a young non-binary transfemme, with a focus of amplifying the voices of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour, Indigenous knowledge holders, and grassroots practitioners, including from refugee settlements. This resulted in a diversity of teachers and storytellers engaging in our transdisciplinary educational initiative, mobilizing a variety of knowledge systems and tools. The underlying societal model is one in which all voices are valued equally, complementarities between modern science and Indigenous knowledge systems are explored, and embracing emergence and diversity is seen as critical in addressing the ecological crisis in a transformative way. Held by the learning community, participants opened up to a pluriverse of sustainability solutions, while feeling enriched by diverging views and competing narratives.
Flourish! was co-led by a young climate resilience advocate, co-facilitated by youth facilitators, and co-designed with 12 young people who both suffered from eco-anxiety and were committed to learning more about growing climate resilience through regeneration. They represented the European citizens who would most directly benefit from the initiative, and ensured that their own needs and preferences were fully integrated in the design of the project. In addition, a preliminary survey to assess the learning needs of young adults was widely circulated online with the support of the international YOUNGO (i.e. Youth NGOs) constituency of the United Nations Climate Change secretariat. Numerous youth networks and organizations working on climate change also disseminated the opportunity of joining Flourish via social media, and had members participate, which amplified the impact of the learning on their organizations. Moreover, we designed Flourish as an iterative process that enabled adjustments and changes from one workshop to another, to best accommodate the evolving needs of the participants in terms of interactive times or complementary learning material.
As the short-video series is now released, we have been reaching out to all the youth organizations and networks that supported the launch of Flourish, so they can avail additional learning material and join the community platform. We wish that their engagement of those organizations with the content of Flourish opens up opportunities for collaboration through tailored learning programmes for their staff or constituency, including in-person programmes. We also wish to partner with other youth-led or youth-focused organizations to run improved editions of Flourish on a yearly basis. Consequently, we will strengthen the ecosystem of organizations working on climate change with youth by making them more resilient to the multifaceted impacts of climate change.
Several young co-designers and co-facilitators of Flourish play a role in local climate activist groups for young people in Europe, and one is an active member of a local regenerative agriculture initiative. Besides, two of our speakers, who contributed to the co-design of the learning journey, are engaged in grassroots initiatives focusing on permaculture training, and the defense of local water rights and Indigenous Peoples’ rights. Regarding implementation, all participants in Flourish were invited to research and engage with local organizations committed to restoring neighboring ecosystems, or to implementing climate adaptation initiatives, including through rewilding, and regenerative agriculture.
At European level, this initiative brought together experts and scholars from multiple disciplines and countries. The European institutions that supported this initiative through advice and direct contributions are the Climate Psychology Alliance (UK), the Mindfulness Initiative (UK), the UNESCO Chair of Futures Literacy at Hanze University (the Netherlands), the Potsdam Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (Germany), and the Lund University Centre for Advanced Sustainability Studies (Sweden). In particular, the Mind4Change research team at Lund University played a significant advisory and support role in the design and delivery of the evaluation of the project as a transformative education initiative.
The disciplines or knowledge fields that informed the design and implementation of the initiative are: climate science with a focus on climate adaption and loss and damage; eco-psychology and climate psychology; mindfulness; futures literacy; social science and pedagogical research related to decolonization; Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems and practices; creative writing and poetry; systems thinking and design thinking; permaculture and regenerative agriculture; visual arts, including multimedia and digital arts; theatre and performance arts.
Representatives of these different fields were invited to take part in the co-design process of the learning journey, in batches and in discussion with young co-designers, with a view to ensuring coherence and complementarity between the different approaches and tools. The added value was an integrated learning journey in which multiple disciplines complemented each other in synergistic ways instead of competing and clashing with one another.
Co-design sessions and the resulting weaving together of disciplines in the delivery of the learning journey (e.g. climate psychology and performance arts; research related to decolonization and poetry; climate science, Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems and visual arts…) opened up new perspectives of transdisciplinary collaboration for experts. It also gave experts new insights into the understanding of some themes or questions, and their teaching practices.
For participants, the multiplicity of perspectives and disciplines to address climate resilience and regeneration was described as ‘mind-opening’, and offered the opportunity to cater to both their emotional and intellectual needs.
The innovative character of the initiative rests on the design principles applied, and our ability to embrace emergence and adapt throughout the design and implementation process:
1) The initiative was co-led and co-designed with experts by youth for youth through an in depth-co-design process, involving an online survey and six two-hour co-design sessions with 12 young people, to go over the structure of the learning journey, its format, the choice of speakers, the design of the community platform, the section of complementary learning material and the communication campaign on social media.
2) Experts and scholars essentially shared their educational material through stories and personal experiences that would integrate science in an engaging way. Participants were invited to ask questions and deepen conversations through breakout group discussions, and to share their own stories of resilience and transformation, including through the community platform.
3) The learning material was transdisciplinary for each session, weaving together scientific disciplines with the arts, and Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems and practices. Artists facilitated some sessions. Besides, participants were invited to complement their learnings with hands on experiences with local community organizations and creative practices.
4) The online community platform offered the opportunity to deepen knowledge, build connections and engage in collaboration in the real world. It was constantly fed new content and prompts to foster engagement.
5) A care team of psychologists and care practitioners from the Climate Psychology Alliance offered emotional support throughout the workshops, as well as one-on-one sessions for participants feeling emotional overwhelm between sessions.
6) An evaluation of the impacts of Flourish! was undertaken with the support of the Lund University team working on inner and outer transformation and will be renewed to monitor long term impacts.
Most of the innovative elements of the learning journey could be replicated or transferred, provided that sufficient care and resources are mobilized to ensure their full implementation. The elements that could be replicated include: the co-design process between youth and experts, with a focus on youth needs and preferences; the centering of storytelling and the mobilization of the arts to engage the audience and facilitate the understanding of complex concepts and realities; the creation of an online community platform to ensure the continuation of exchanges between workshops and the development of collaboration that will benefit local communities and ecosystems; as well as the presence of the care team to enable and ease transformative learning processes.
Numerous participants highlighted the critical role played by our care practitioners in enabling them to face discomfort and difficult realities, as well as in the process of growing imagination and engaging in new regenerative ventures as a result of the learning journey. We have gathered significant data on the importance of emotional support to foster transformation, and would gladly transfer our experience in this emerging field. Similarly, we have expanded our expertise in collaborating with artists for transformative learning and could reflect on the required conditions to effect change.
The methodological process we developed to deliver the learning journey and adapt it along the way to meet the evolving needs of participants could also be helpful to organizations willing to develop inclusive transdisciplinary learning experiences. However, the structure and content of the learning journey would need to be adapted to each group of beneficiaries and contexts to best meet local needs, practices and expectations. This is the main condition to make participants feel heard and seen, which then creates a sense of belonging.
Our approach was collaborative, transdisciplinary and emergent, with an iterative method to ensure that we could integrate new learnings throughout the design and delivery of the workshop series. It intended to create curiosity and excitement from the start within the co-designing team, and to bring together co-designers, co-facilitators, experts and participants in the creation of a learning, caring and doing community.
The co-design process was structured to cover all elements of the design of the learning journey. The series of workshops was designed to address numerous dimensions of climate resilience and transformation, from growing inner resilience, to re-building communities and fostering the regeneration of ecosystems through various practical techniques. We complemented learning online with hands on exercises in nature. We had numerous universities, research centres and education institutes to advise us along the way. We designed the impact assessment from the start to have before and after data, as well as follow up of the impacts of the learning journey over a six-month period, with the support of Lund University.
All voices were valued equally during both the co-design process and the delivery of the learning journey, which aimed at facilitating dialogues across countries and generations. Moreover, all emotions were welcome throughout the learning process, which we stressed by having speakers and co-facilitators model this behavior. We also worked closely with ecopsychologists and care practitioners to make the learning space as safe as possible through clear guidelines and grounding techniques, to help grow imagination, creativity and collaboration. This enabled participants to develop strong connections early on, as well as to feel held and in community throughout the experience.
The first global challenge is climate change, particularly its adverse impacts on the emotional and mental health impacts of young people. The global mental health challenge could also be mentioned here, and is related to the global challenge of isolation, loneliness, and lack of community of support, as well as of appropriate mental health care.
To address such intertwined challenges, Flourish! offered knowledge, tools and methods grounded in eco-psychology, as well as invitations to build community and engage in community initiatives and ecosystems restoration locally. Time spent in nature and in community is proven to have positive effects on stress, anxiety and depression. Flourish! fostered a sense of belonging that went beyond the transnational community co-created by its participants, and included all living beings to be found in nature. Participants reported spending more time in nature and connecting to animals and plants differently as a result of the learning journey. This led to enhanced wellbeing and more engagement towards tree planting specifically.
Consequently, the approach of fostering a sense of belonging including the more-than-human world led to involvement in some ecosystem restoration activities, and a stronger motivation to act against climate change and its impacts. In turn, this engagement is likely to address the global challenge of biodiversity loss and ecosystems degradation.
The Flourish! workshop series took place from September to November 2022, to the benefits of 270+ participants, 160+ participants having joined the community platform, and 40-70 participants taking an active part in each of the 7 workshops. The short-video series, including 9 episodes highlighting our key messages and sharing powerful artworks, was released at the end of January and aims to reach a wider audience thanks to a communication campaign that is unfolding at the moment.
The impacts of the project on the participants in the workshop series was captured by before and after surveys to which over 30 participants contributed, as well as through one-on-one interviews. Detailed results can be found in the reports below, and include an increased sense of wellbeing, a sense of belonging to a caring community and to the more than human world, enhanced agency and motivation, enhanced creativity. Those impacts are in addition to a better understanding of climate resilience and regeneration, and of the steps that can be taken to address the multifaceted impacts of the climate crisis.
Regarding next steps, for the next iteration of Flourish!, new collaborations would need to be established to ensure that a larger number of participants engage actively in ecosystem restoration efforts at the time of the learning journey and afterwards, as suggested by surveyed participants. Follow-up workshops and online events could also be organized to keep growing connections among participants via the community platform. In all cases, One Resilient Earth is actively looking for partners to develop new iterations of Flourish! ideally on a yearly basis, and to test in-person formats to best meet the needs of various audiences.
Flourish! contributes to all the competences of the European competence framework on sustainability through its various workshops and the learning resources shared through the community platform.
The learning journey focuses particularly on ‘embodying sustainability values’ and ‘envisioning sustainable futures’, as the above answers demonstrate. Embracing complexity in sustainability is approached through the weaving together of modern science and Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems and practices, more than through systems thinking as taught in European universities. Yet critical thinking and problem framing are essential in the learnings that we share. We do not directly address political agency, and focus on emphasizing the complementarity between collective action and individual initiative.
