Educational Activities

Call for Feminists in the Environmental Movement: Local Reporters

CDN News, Educational Activities, Uncategorized, Working groups

CDN is opening the call for the Local Reporters for one year long project “Feminists in the Environmental Movement”. You can find more information about the project here.

This is a paid, part-time, home office based research position, starting from the late-mid February 2022. We are accepting applications by the 23rd of January 23:59 CET.

Working time: average of 2 hours/week, Spring-Summer 2022, flexible working hours (some activities might take place during weekends)
Remuneration and per diem: from EUR 350 to EUR 500, depending on the country the reporter lives in and does the interview in.

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Feminists in the Environmental Movement (FEM)

CDN News, Educational Activities, Working groups

How climate change affects the women in the rural areas of Eastern Europe

The struggles women in rural areas of the Eastern Europe face are usually overlooked when discussing climate change. Even though women are responsible for 60% of world’s food supply by working in harsh conditions in fields, they are often silenced by figures of authority and the wider society alike. In rural communities, it is notable that climate change significantly affects economic yield of agriculture, and first ones to feel that impact are women. Young people, on the other hand, are migrating from the rural to urban areas. In deeply rural communities, people often depend on natural resources for everyday life. With the arrival of industries, polluters and investors who strive for profit, lifes of people in rural communities are labeled as less important than profit. The investors not only pollute, but destroy the ecosystems that have grown around them. As we can see from examples of brave women all around Eastern Europe, they are ready to fight to protect local natural resources, even if at times they face violence. Their stories deserve to be heard by wider audience, to break the stigma of traditionally labeled “powerless woman”, promote eco-activism in all communities and release women from the shackles of their oppressors. This is why CDN, with its Gender WG decided to join the GEF project “Feminists in the Environmental Movement” with the following activity.

The aim of the activity is to raise voices of young women in rural areas that are being affected by climate change and its causes, as well as share positive stories and bring attention to importance of addressing climate change in an intersectional way.

In this project, we will conduct a 1 day training on journalism for 7 young people from Eastern and Central Europe (CDN MO and PO members, WG members). The training will happen on the 7th of March in Tbilisi, Georgia and will be attached to CDN’s WG meeting, conference and GA. After the training the participants will visit rural areas in their countries that are impacted most by climate change and environmental problems, research and document how they affect young women and make interviews with them. The reporters would be trained to facilitate open and honest conversations and empowering the young women by giving them space to share their experiences with the wider public.

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CALL FOR HOST ORGANISATIONS: “We are the future, but we are here NOW!”

CDN News, Educational Activities, Uncategorized

CDN is announcing a call for host organisations for the 2022 International Activities of Work Plan “We are the future, but we are here NOW!”. Detailed information about the project can be found at the Project Page.

All the Member and Partner Organisations are eligible to apply.

Details of the International Activities:

1st phase –  Why to participate 11-16th of April 2022

The first event of the Work plan is a 6 day long international activity with the aim to equip youth workers from Eastern Europe with knowledge of the importance of youth participation. 

2nd phase –  Skills for massive youth activation 13-17th of June 2022

The second activity of the WP is a 5 day international training course focusing on preparing the participants for the 3rd stage in depth through enhancing their skills. With this phase, we aim to equip youth workers from Eastern Europe with skills of engaging young people in lives of their communities

The host organisations are expected to:

  • Provide logistical support (help us with finding accommodation and venue, arranging catering, travel, visas, local speakers etc.);
  • Be there in case of emergency (someone getting sick, urgent purchases, extra needs, etc.;
  • Delegate two volunteers to become part of the local prep-team, that will be present at the event all the time, as well as assist at the prepteam meetings 2 months before the events.

If your organisation has capacities, time and motivation required to host the first or the second International Activities, please fill out this FORM (CLOSED).

Deadline for filling in the form is 20th of December 2021 23:59 CET.  

The Executive Committee of CDN will assess the applications and make a decision, which you’ll be informed about the latest by 14th of January.

Do not hesitate to contact us at project.coordinator@cdnee.org should you have any questions about the call or the application process.


 For more information about rights and responsibilities of a Host Organisation check this document.

Open call for Participants: Study Session “Work that Works for all: Shaping Europe’s Future of Work”

Educational Activities, Member Organizations, News

Cooperation and Development Network Eastern Europe (CDN) and Federation of Young European Greens (FYEG) are announcing a call for participants for the Study Session “Work that Works for all: Shaping Europe’s Future of Work”.

The event will take place during 15-20 November in the European Youth Center Budapest (EYCB), Hungary. Travel dates to and from Budapest are 14 and 21 November.

With this activity, we aim to empower 35 young Europeans in accessing their social rights – the right to decent work – in order for them to become agents of change in their local communities through human rights education in the pandemic world. The aims of the study session are:

  • To explore the legal, structural and societal history, context, challenges and barriers young people face while accessing their right to decent work in different European countries;
  • To deepen participants’ understanding of youth unemployment and youth precarity, their social (political, economic) and individual (physical and mental health) consequences;
  • To explore the existing opportunities and initiatives for young people in accessing work related rights, as well as to develop participants’ understanding and solidarity about the social and economic conditions their peers are facing;
  • To equip the participants and their organisations with the tools for countering the challenges and consequences of  inaccessible Social rights.
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Work Plan “We are the future, but we are here NOW!”

Activities, CDN News, Educational Activities, Member Organizations, News

Project background

At the Strategic Planning Meeting of CDN in March 2020 the topical areas of interest of the MOs and POs of CDN were identified as follows: climate, gender, cities, digitisation, migration, food, health and labour rights, but the work on these and other topics is pretty limited in the Eastern Europe due to the ever-shrinking space for the civil sector.

We saw that even before the COVID-19 pandemics, the civil and political rights of majority of the Eastern Europeans were not guaranteed. Protests against number of governments or against particular decisions are being confronted with unbalanced police force in Georgia, Serbia and Greece. In Belarus, Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkey the space for the civil society is non-existent and the oligarchic governments of other countries from the region are following the bad example of the governments of the above mentioned countries and misusing the pandemic related measures to restrict the rights to protest and at the same time ignoring the outcries for help from the civil sector, as well as the general public. Meanwhile, the levels of trust towards the states and understanding the procedures behind the speeches of the decision-makers is decreasing, as the Eastern Europeans have to think about the economic and health related issues. According to National Democracy Institute (NDI.org), less than one third of young people express satisfaction and trust some political option to represent their needs. We believe, that the pandemic brought out on a daylight the symptoms of deep political crisis that the Eastern Europe (EE) is suffering from for decades and one of the solutions to improve the situation is a massive education of the young people on the importance of their participation in the life of their country. Only by practicing true, informed democracy we will be able to build resilient and just Eastern Europe, where the human rights are respected and youth life flourishing.

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RUMB Regional Meeting 2021

CDN News, Educational Activities, Regional Work

Our rights and freedoms are in our hands!

The regional meeting of representatives of Member Organisations and associates from the RUMB region (Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus), organized by CDN and hosted by the Republican Center Gutta-Club, was held in Chisinau (Moldova) on 20-24 July. The participants worked together on common problems and common solutions concerning the civil and political rights of youth in these countries.

Despite the fact that the group consisted of people from different fields of activity with different backgrounds, the desire to participate in Green activism and the desire for change are what united the participants of the meeting. The event helped young people expand their knowledge of civic and political rights and meet like-minded people from neighbouring countries who want to take the first step towards a better, fair reality for all.

The program of the first day included interactive lectures, where the participants learned about a brief history of civil and political rights in the region, discussed the work of institutions that should protect these rights, compared the situation in the region and worked in groups to identify regional organizations and institutions ensuring the observance of these rights in each country. Moreover, young activists had the opportunity to listen to a lecture by Doctor of Science, expert-analyst Alexander Makukhin “Ensuring civil and political rights in the RUMB countries: pre-election / post-election perspective” and have a discussion with the lecturer and each other. In addition, thanks to the activities of the organizers and the facilitators, the participants got to know each other better during the team building activities, city quest and group reflection sessions. The first day ended with the “Fair of Organizations”, where participants presented their organisations and exchanged experiences of volunteering in them.

During the second day, participants analyzed the tools and methods for claiming their rights, analyzing their effectiveness, accessibility and security in each of the countries using the example of specific cases. Further, having studied the institutional barriers to upholding civil and political rights in the RUMB countries in the form of an interactive game, the participants divided into teams, systematized the information received in the form of a poster, in which they reflected their thoughts and ways to effectively achieve goals and effectively resist violations of rights. After discussing the posters, the participants gathered for a group reflection and ended the day by watching and discussing documentaries about the major political events in Ukraine (d \ f “Euromaidan. Rough editing”) and in Belarus (d \ f “Sisters of protest”).

The third, final, day began with the session: “The role of international solidarity in the fight for our rights.” During the session, the young people discussed ways of expressing solidarity and concrete actions that can be used to solve the problem. As in the past days, in small groups, some cases were reviewed and posters were created on the topic. The conclusion of the whole discussion of the last day and the two previous ones was the identification of fundamental human rights, which, according to the group, are most often violated, and the creation of projects that contribute to changing this situation. Participants presented their ideas, suggesting creative ways: creating demonstrative role-playing board games, comics, and even envisioning new professions.

The meeting of young Greens of the region showed that by having an active civic position, one can always come to a consensus by discussing a problem and unite common efforts to solve it.

Ekaterina Chulkova
Volunteer of RC Gutta-club

Call for the PT of “Work that Works for all: Shaping Europe’s Future of Work” Study Session

CDN News, Educational Activities, Uncategorized

Cooperation and Development Network (CDN) and Federation of Young European Greens (FYEG) are announcing an open call for members of preparatory team (prep-team) for the study session “Work that Works for all: Shaping Europe’s Future of Work”  which will take place from 16th to 21st of November 2021 in the European Youth Centre in Budapest, Hungary. The arrival date for the participants is 15th and departure date on 22nd. More information on the project you can find here.

With this activity we aim to empower 40 young Europeans in accessing their social rights – the right to decent work (the right to work, and the right to adequate social protection) and support them in becoming agents of change in their local communities through human rights education. This will be done by meeting the following objectives:

  • To explore the legal, structural and societal challenges and barriers young people face while accessing their right to decent work in different European countries;
  • To deepen participants’ understanding of youth unemployment and youth precarity, their social (political, economic) and individual (physical and mental health) consequences, and the intersection of these consequences;
  • To explore the existing opportunities and initiatives for young people in accessing meaningful work, adequate standard of living and social security, as well as to develop participants’ understanding and solidarity about the social and economic conditions their peers are facing;
  • To equip the participants and their organisations with the tools for countering the challenges and consequences of inaccessible Social rights.
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Study Session “Work that Works for all: Shaping Europe’s Future of Work”

CDN News, Educational Activities

Today, as the real and perceived inequality and precarity increase, young people struggle more and more to participate in the work of organisations, activism or decision-making processes due to the economic and social distress they are experiencing. In the context we are living in, the working conditions are shaped by the mere motivation of profit-seeking rather than by guaranteed social rights. Although this paradigm affects the working life of everyone, young people get affected much more. This is visible through unpaid internships, discrimination at work, longer working hours, insufficient wages and getting fired easily with no compensation.  

The rise of new technologies, globalisation, rapid changes in the world of work, economic crisises, automatisation, and now COVID-19 pandemic have disrupted labour markets across the world. The youth’s chances of decent, long term and meaningful employment is decreasing. Especially, Covid-19 crisis is reshaping working conditions and speeding the digital transformation.

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Call For MO Direct Support

Activities, CDN News, Educational Activities, News

Dear Member Organisations,

As announced during the General Assembly, we are happy to open the call for direct financial support to your activities!

In case you are planning (internal or external) activities between July and November 2021 and you have uncovered costs, we are happy to let you know that CDN might be able to help! Perhaps you need a venue/working room we can rent for you, a movie you have to buy online, an experienced trainer for strategic planning or similar that we can pay for or some travel/accommodation’s costs to be covered? If this is the case, then take a look at this call. Please bear in mind that this call is envisioned as a contribution/support to your work, so at the moment of applying you should already have a clear idea and developed programme of the activity, as well as the rest of the funding ensured. We can cover your costs up to around 1200 EUR, but feel free to apply for smaller or bigger amounts as final decisions will be brought up by the EC on the basis of the assessment of the application and other circumstances.

Who can apply?
This call is for CDN Member Organisations only.

When is the deadline?
There is no deadline for applying for the support. However, you have to apply at least six weeks prior to the activity taking place. Also, supported activities cannot take place after 30th of November 2021.

What types of activities can be covered?
Whatever that your organisation is doing as long as the costs are properly documented (see below). So, it can be a contribution to a seminar, a protest that you are organising or some internal event like GA or Strategic Planning Meeting.

What costs can be covered?
We can cover travel, accommodation, meals, venue, trainer/lecturer fees, online tools, stationery, printing materials, PCR tests etc. Bear in mind that for each cost we will need all original financial documentation (bills, slips, tickets, contracts, proofs of payments, etc.) sent by post no later than a week before the event ends. We will not be able to reimburse costs with insufficient documentation.

What costs cannot be covered?
We cannot cover staff fees, office rent, office equipment and costs for which valid proof of payment cannot be issued.

How to apply and when to expect a response?
Fill in THIS application form and BUDGET at least six weeks prior to the activity taking place and send them to office@cdnee.org keeping in cc EC member that is the contact person for your MO. CDN Executive Committee will assess the applications and come back to you within 2 weeks since the moment you’ve applied. EC might come back to you with clarification questions and EC decides on the final conditions and amount for the financial support. Distribution of the budget will depend on the number of organisations that approach us with proposals, so feel free to express your needs, but also be ready that we might not be able to support you fully.
Once you got approval from our side, we will send you the contract and elaborated financial conditions document. CDN Office Assistant will be there to support you with financial reporting and the Network Coordinator and EC member that is the contact person for your organisation will be your reference point for any other matters related to the application.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Bear in mind that we cannot transfer you money in advance. This means that you will have to cover the costs and will get reimbursed ONLY after we have received, final report and financial documentation sent by post to our office in Belgrade. There is also a possibility to do some transfers on your behalf (e.g. directly pay trainers or venue/accommodation).
 
In case you have any questions regarding this call, do not hesitate to write to office@cdnee.org

Finally, we would like to remind you that CDN remains at your disposal for other types of support apart from the financial one. If you need recommendation for a trainer, tool, methodology, support in raising visibility of your activities and similar, feel free to reach out to the EC member that is your contact point for CDN.

Best regards,
CDN Executive Committee and Secretariat

Open call for Participants: Training “Cities for All – How?”

Activities, Alternative Urbanisation, CDN News, Educational Activities, Gender, News, Working groups

The Green European Foundation with the support of Cooperation and Development Network Eastern Europe is announcing a call for Participants for the international training “Cities for All – How?”. The training will take place between 25th and 31st of July in Serbia. 24th of July and 1st of August are the arrival and departure dates for the participants.

The project is the second phase of the Annual Work Plan “Cities for All – inclusive Urban planning and decision making in the Eastern European cities” and is going to focus on developing the advocacy skills of young activists to shape a more inclusive, LGBT+ friendly and safe cities for everyone in the local contexts.

Objectives of the “Cities for all – How?” are:

  • To develop the participants’ skills of creative and efficient campaigning for spreading the message to the wider public;
  • Create a space to explore the new tools and strategies, adapted to the struggles of young LGBT+ individuals and women in the cities, for lobbying the demands to the different stakeholders;
  • Equipping the participants with the skills of working with the local communities and organising outreach activities on the local level, that encourage young people’s active mobilisation around the topic of Cities for all.
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