A little late, I spent two days at the „Ban fossil ads gathering“ in Barcelona. At this conference, a wide variety of people presented and discussed their work and strategies. The different strategies and tactics got me thinking. Where is the appropriate starting point? Local? Or national?

At the „ban fossil ads“ conference in Barcelona on Saturday, Geraldine Deade Tanakula from Scientist Rebellion DRC spoke about greenwashing in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She made it clear: There is no such thing as green capitalism for the energy transition. The exploitation of raw materials is destroying Congo, while the profits go to the global north. And the people of Congo are also being ripped off with greenwashing. And our author had an insight into his own racist thought patterns.

The alarm clock rang at 4:30 a.m. Why? The Ban Fossil Ads conference in Barcelona! After a 17-hour train ride, we finally arrived. The meeting was organized by Subvertisers International and the Fossil Free campaign from the Netherlands. They invited people from all over the world. The aim was to bring together people who are involved in outdoor advertising in the broadest sense and who are working to abolish advertising and sponsorship for fossil fuel products and services.

International encounters are an important step toward grassroots peacebuilding. We want to work together to overcome the hurdles in the EU application process. The EU and many other funding bodies support this. However, many are put off by the lengthy applications and lengthy funding guidelines. We want to change that! With the Small Scale Partnership „Getting Ready for Europe: The Peace Project Lab.“ As part of this partnership, we will conduct workshops, writing workshops, and job shadowing in Erasmus+ projects for 18 month. Aplycation date is february 2026. Project-Start is supposted to be in late 2026. Main activies are supposted to be in 2027 in Berlin.

Bison and giant sequoias? I saw these things on a trip to Warsaw and Hajnowka in Poland. The occasion was an event organized by the Polish National Agency for Erasmus+. The partnership-building activity (PBA) was called „Belarusian Youth Work.“ It brought me into contact with youth organizations that had fled Belarus to Poland. In this way, the EU provides assistance in finding partners for Erasmus+ projects. We brainstormed project ideas together, and the EU provides tips for submitting applications. And I saw bisons:

The main funders for our youth exchange, the EVZ, were so impressed by our work that they asked to interview us about the project and why we organised it. This interview was published in a new online magazine about the MEET UP! initiatives, under which our youth exchange falls. You can find the interview here. We attended the launch event of the online magazine the 6th of December and enjoyed listening to Exciting talks, musical entertainment and gallery walk through the various MEET UP! projects. Here are some of our thoughts on the event.

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One of the Belarusian participants of our youth exchange „Human rights in times of war: Reflections on democracy and asylum“ wrote this essay for us to publish. They detail how they experienced the youth exchange in total, and specifically, the day of the action in front of the Bundestag and the talk to a member of parliament afterwards.

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Sunday started similar to other days: We arrived in dribs and drabs for breakfast and tried to finally wake up with a cup of coffee. Afterward, we met outside and left for a trip to the Nazi Forced Labor Documentation Center in Berlin-Schöneweide.

To day (Friday, 06.10.2023) we had a workshop regarding conscientious objection. In addition we visited Potsdam and had a look on the „Denkmal für den unbekannten Deserteur“ and the Lernort Garnisonskirche.

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