• How can arts-based methods engage young people with the climate crisis and activism in non-formal education settings?

• How can an embedded reflection strategy within the project enable the capturing of artist learning processes and help us to understand the impact of the project on practice in different contexts?

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Codename: Seedling is an international collaborative project, led by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and with creative partners in Belgium, Denmark, UK, Portugal and France. The project is funded by Erasmus+ as a KA2 Partnership (€250k, 2024-2026).

The project explores the climate crisis and climate justice with young people, using arts activities. We are bringing together practitioners working with young people in arts, education, and activism to learn from each other as an international community of practice and upskill young people in local youth-led projects by reflecting upon the current state and future of Earth through art-making.

The main project goals are:

1. Improving youth’s agency in the face of the climate crisis via youth-led arts-based advocacy (graphic storytelling, theatre, music, digital games and more)
2. advancing non-formal climate education by interweaving the expertise from arts, education, and activism.

The project’s key outputs we are delivering are:

• Arts-based advocacy output from 5 local projects

• A toolbox to work on climate via participatory, playful, and arts-based methods

• An impact study on how the methods, learning approaches, and advocacy work contribute to making climate change meaningful and support a sense of agency.

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Image credit Ross Kernahan