YMCA joins AMPLIFY: strengthening disaster preparedness through creativity and youth camps

YMCA Europe is delighted to be a partner in AMPLIFY – Amplifying whole-of-society disaster preparedness through artistic, creative and cultural engagement, a new Horizon Europe research and innovation project bringing together researchers, local authorities, first responders, community organisations, creative practitioners and European networks.

Over the next three years, AMPLIFY will explore new ways of helping communities across Europe understand, communicate and prepare for disaster risks. Rather than relying only on traditional warnings and technical information, the project will bring together science, creativity, culture and community participation to make preparedness more accessible, engaging and relevant to people’s everyday lives.

At the heart of AMPLIFY are four Creative Hubs across Europe. These will provide spaces where communities, researchers, authorities, first responders and creative practitioners can work together to develop new approaches to risk communication and disaster preparedness.

For YMCA Europe, this means bringing the experience, reach and potential of Europe’s youth camp community into the project.

A Pan-European Creative Hub for youth camps

YMCA Europe will co-host AMPLIFY’s Pan-European Creative Hub, working alongside the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, with creative support from Pro Progressione. The Hub will focus on disaster preparedness within youth camps across Europe, connecting camp leaders and youth workers from different countries and contexts.

Climate change is already changing the environment in which camps operate. Depending on their location, camps may face wildfires, extreme heat, drought, flooding or severe storms. Camps are often located in forests, close to rivers, along coastlines or in other natural environments, making preparedness increasingly important.

Through AMPLIFY, camp leaders will have opportunities to exchange experiences, identify challenges and work alongside creative practitioners and disaster-preparedness experts to develop new ways of communicating risk.

The ambition is not simply to tell young people about risk. It is to explore how storytelling, visual communication, creative activities and participatory learning can help young people and camp communities understand risks, feel connected to the issue and know what they can do to prepare.

The Pan-European Hub will combine interactive online collaboration with in-person activities in youth camps, allowing learning and ideas to travel between countries and different camp contexts.

Building on YMCA Europe’s camping journey

Camping has long been an important part of the YMCA movement and an environment where young people learn through experience, community and the outdoors.

Over the past four years, YMCA Europe has built on this tradition through Camp Europe and Campacity – Pan-European initiatives designed to connect camp leaders, share good practice, strengthen skills and create opportunities for learning and exchange across the European YMCA camping movement.

These initiatives have demonstrated the value of bringing camp professionals and volunteers together across borders. Through training, networking, exchange and camp sessions, leaders have been able to learn from one another while strengthening the quality and capacity of YMCA camping across Europe.

AMPLIFY represents the next chapter in this journey.

While continuing the emphasis on connection, learning and capacity building, the project gives YMCA Europe an opportunity to focus more deeply on a growing challenge for camps: how we prepare for changing environmental conditions and increasingly complex climate-related hazards.

Flooding, wildfires, extreme heat and storms affect different parts of Europe in different ways. Through AMPLIFY, we want to help camp leaders better understand the risks relevant to their own settings, exchange practical experience and develop creative, youth-friendly ways of strengthening preparedness.

We are also delighted to welcome William Jones as a new colleague at YMCA Europe. William will support the continued development of camping across Europe, with a particular focus on helping camps strengthen their preparedness for different environmental situations.

Building on the foundations created through Camp Europe and Campacity, his work will help connect the YMCA camping network with the opportunities created through AMPLIFY – ensuring that the knowledge, tools and relationships developed through the project can support camps across Europe.

From camp leaders to young people across Europe

One of the strengths of AMPLIFY is the potential for learning to travel far beyond those directly participating in the project.

YMCA Europe will contribute to the development of the Y-Prepare Youth Training Platform, building on the existing Y-Adapt approach developed by the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre. Working with YMCA and Red Cross youth, camp leaders, volunteers and youth workers, AMPLIFY will adapt and expand this approach for disaster preparedness.

The resulting learning will combine scientific understanding with creative and practical methods, helping youth leaders explore local risks, communicate preparedness in engaging ways and develop plans grounded in their own communities and cultures.

Camp leaders can then bring this learning directly into their camps and youth programmes, creating a multiplier effect across the YMCA movement.

Our ambition is for camps to be more than places that are prepared for environmental risks. They can also become places where young people learn about resilience, preparedness and their own role in responding to a changing climate.

Connecting creativity, preparedness and the YMCA movement

AMPLIFY brings together 15 beneficiary organisations from across Europe, alongside associate partners, connecting expertise from universities, municipalities, first responders, arts and cultural organisations, disaster risk specialists and community networks.

For YMCA Europe, our participation provides an opportunity to ensure that young people, youth workers and camp leaders have a meaningful place within this conversation.

Over the coming three years, we look forward to connecting camp leaders across Europe, sharing experiences from different contexts, testing creative approaches to preparedness and translating what we learn into practical resources that can support the wider YMCA movement.

Most importantly, AMPLIFY gives us an opportunity to build on the connections established through Camp Europe and Campacity and ask a new question together:

How can Europe’s camps become safer, more prepared and more resilient places for the next generation?

We look forward to exploring the answer together.

 

 

 

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme. Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the granting authority. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

The post YMCA joins AMPLIFY: strengthening disaster preparedness through creativity and youth camps appeared first on YMCA Europe.

Fonte: YMCA EUROPE
Leggi sul sito originale