28th of February 2023 marked the official closure of the project “We4Change: Girls and Women Connecting for Environmental Change” aimed at engaging, connecting and empowering young girls and women with digital and innovation skills, increase civic engagement and unlock their changemaking potential to engage in society and have an active role in addressing the challenges posed by climate change.
Over the past two years, partners Digital Leadership Institute (BE), Stimmuli for Social Change (GR), Empow’Her (FR), TEKEDU (MD) and ZERO (PT) have worked together to achieve this mission and had the following results:
- The We4Change Changemakers Event Curriculum: a series of educational materials to serve as examples of workshops that can be organized during a We4Change Changemakers Event to develop the skills promoted by the project: digital, social innovation, entrepreneurship, leadership and environmental awareness skills. It includes the specific methodology to prepare each workshop, but also other elements that can be used when organizing a Changemakers Event, such as working with mentors and coaches, and information on the practicalities of organizing the events. The curriculum can be downloaded for free in five languages: English, French, Greek, Portuguese and Romanian.
- Handbook for Trainers and Youth Workers on Running a Successful We4Change Changemakers Event: complementing the curriculum, this handbook aims to support trainers and youth workers – including those that may have never applied before gender mainstreaming tools – to organize effectively a We4Change Changemakers Event, to drive active citizenship and empower girls and young women with digital and environmental awareness skills to become the future changemakers of their community. It introduces the guiding principles of the We4Change concept, values and philosophy, describes the competences that trainers and youth workers, as well as participants will apply for the different activities, and includes all practical information needed to organize a successful We4Change Changemakers Event. The handbook can be downloaded for free in five languages: English, French, Greek, Portuguese and Romanian.
- Partners organized a We4Change “Train the Trainers” workshop in March 2022 training over 30 youth workers to apply the We4Change principles and methodology to run a successful Changemakers Event in their communities.
- Partners organized a total of 14 We4Change Changemakers Events in their countries, with more than 100 girls and young women participating, to inspire them to ideate and design collectively solutions to problems encountered in their environments with the support of other stakeholders from the local communities.
- Each partner organized a dissemination event to share about the results of the project and discuss how other stakeholders can use them to achieve the project’s objective.
All the results can be found and downloaded for free on the project website: http://we4change.eu/.
Thank you to the partners, stakeholders, girls and young women for participating to the project activities during the past two years, and supporting us to be changemakers for a sustainable future! Thank you also to the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union for the support to make this international collaboration possible!
