MTÜ Avastusmatkad first Erasmus+ project abroad - "Green Shift: Promoting Sustainable Practices & Lifestyle to the Youth"

2024 has been an important year for MTÜ Avastusmatkad, because it’s the first year when we are officially international in our operations. While all of our members have travelled a lot, our NGO has so far been active within the borders of Estonia. In May we organized our first hike to Finland with our good partners from Vinni and Siimusti. In Spring, we partnered as a sending organization with IAIS from Malta and Creative Youth from Armenia to be part of an Erasmus+ training course called “Green Shift: Promoting Sustainable Practices & Lifestyle to the Youth”.

The first part of the project took place in Jerevan, Armenia between 22nd and 30th of June. MTÜ Avastusmatkad sent three participants - Anton, Maarjus and Riivo. Below is a short summary through the eyes of Maarjus, who as Riivo was on his first Erasmus+ project. 

My first time to take part of Erasmus+ project. Why now? Because until recently I thought Erasmus was only for students and I haven’t been a student for more than a decade. Last year, however, Anton had been sharing his experience from the last projects in Bosnia and Malta with such enthusiasm that I had to find out what the hype is all about. After reading a few reviews and blogs it seemed like something I could try, so decided to try. The fact that I knew the other guys from Estonia gave me confidence that it just might work out.

“Green Shift: Promoting Sustainable Practices & Lifestyle to the Youth” is a training course aimed at discussion around the topic of sustainability on one hand and fostering connections between active people from different countries on the other - at least that’s how I understood it. The program is funded by the European Union. While I work with international students a lot, the group was still very diverse even by my standards - there were people of all ages present from countries like Armenia, Malta, Georgia, Hungary, Romania, Greece, Slovenia and Egypt. All of them represented very different organizations and cultures, so even before digging into the topic of sustainability I had learned a lot about other countries and people.

Sustainability is a familiar topic for me, but the training nevertheless opened completely new discussion topics around the subject. What’s interesting is that we had representatives from different sectors of the economy from the source countries, both private and public, thanks to which we had diverse discussions around nuclear energy, governmental policies and sustainable technologies. Not only that, but we also saw examples of grassroots initiatives around sustainability from different countries. For me, the most eyeopening were the group working sessions where we learned about sustainable practices and policies from the participating countries. I was amazed at the ability of participants to talk about the sustainable developments, issues and also future perspectives in depth. As for Estonia, we made a presentation about the emerging circular economy in our fossil fuel based power sector. During the training course we visited a few local organizations that work with the topic of sustainability and innovation, which again opened new avenues for further learning.

Even though the training itself was well organized and filled a lot of the time we spent in Armenia, it doesn’t mean that we focused solely on work during our time there. Actually there were plenty of cultural events and sufficient free time that together allowed me to experience the Armenian way of life and local culture. Our Estonian group was made up of three hiking enthusiasts, so of course we also took the chance to visit the mountains close to a small town called Aparan. Our local friend Hayk guided us in the ways of the Armenian soul and also taught some language basics, which was a big help, since most of it seemed very difficult at first.

All in all, while we learned a lot about the topic itself, I find that the biggest value was from building new connections with participants who either participate in youth work or lead NGO-s in other countries. At the time of writing this summary, MTÜ Avastusmatkad has already started a new partnership with our Slovenian friends - something that would not have happened without this project.

Eagerly waiting for the second part of the training in Malta to meet our friends and build on the foundation of the first part.

Sincerely,

Anton, Maarjus and Riivo