A New Dawn in Italy - Taking on the Environment

              

 “Love is the answer, and love is the way! Shree Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram...”

     Eight people were bundled up and singing at the top of their lungs deep in the Italian countryside about an hour’s drive away from Perugia. While the participants of this conference were from all over (Italy, Germany, Morocco, Israel, the Netherlands, Russia, and Slovenia), they shared common goals that contributed to an amazing camaraderie.

    The day had been jam packed, as Training Courses for Youth Workers’ generally are. This beautiful multicultural group of people had gathered at PeR (Parco dell’Energia Rinnovabile) to learn how to utilize the Erasmus+ and Yes to Sustainability network to plan future youth exchanges and training courses for EU and partner countries. From November 10th to the 15, A New Dawn attended “From the Idea to the Project”, a Youth Workers’ Mobility course funded by Erasmus+.

PeR is a sustainability research center in the Umbria region of Italy, and is Italy’s largest independent, off-grid facility. Through ethical resource management, permaculture and self-sufficiency, they propose a new model of living to combat climate change.

     A New Dawn in the Negev brought the Israeli delegation to the conference; bringing not only the Jewish Israeli perspective, but sharing the Bedouin Israeli voice into a new sphere. Jamal Alkirnawi, the CEO and Founder of A New Dawn, focused on new ways of strengthening youth’s tools for affecting change. Nadav Mishali, the owner of the Ofakim Cinema, represented one of the people bringing arts and culture back to the South of Israel! Lastly, Alexa Goldstein, A New Dawn’s Director of Resource Development and Olah Chadasha was in attendance and eager to learn from her delegation and the other sending countries.

     Erasmus+ is a European Union program that supports projects aimed at addressing social-economic changes for growth, employment, equity and social inclusion. While everyone at the conference came from all walks of life, employment, and language, we all came united to affect change and to build a more collaborative world. Eramus+ funds organizations like Yes to Sustainability, who organized this Italian training course. Yes to Sustainability is focused on bringing together young people from all over Europe and its partner countries to ecovillages and ecofarms to explore themes of sustainability and cooperation.

                New projects were proposed, diverse partnerships were made, and A New Dawn was so happy to have been part of such an amazing collective of people. Training courses through this network aim at empowering Youth Workers to integrate sustainability and new frameworks for collaboration into their work model and communities. A New Dawn gained insight into how we might contribute to the fight against climate change, how to create power-sharing cooperative efforts within and outside our community, and how we can make sure that the Bedouin voice of Israel is heard at the next project! Jamal joined with two representatives from Russia and the representative from Morocco in planning a summer camp for youth leaders to fight for sustainability through digital technologies, to be hosted in Russia in the coming year! Through this new partnership, and the other Erasmus+ exchanges and trainings, A New Dawn is taking another step forward in developing programming to directly address climate change and its effect on the South of Israel.