In the end of February YEE's volunteers Cameron and Natasha took part in the Study Session organised by International Young Nature Friends (IYNF) with the support of Council of Europe and European Youth Centre in Budapest.

The Study Session was called "Youth encountering environmental human rights" and it took part between 24 February and 2 March. The two main topics covered there were environmental human rights education and activism. The young people from many many countries who came to European Youth Centre were able to share their ideas on the topics and also meet the experts: Anna Fogel, Polish lawyer and specialist in environmental law, who told us about the violation of human rights in connection with the environment (with interesting examples). There were also two experts with big experience in activism: Jiří Malík, Czech activist who founded Stop HF against hydraulic fracturing, and Martin Balluch, animal rights activist from Austria who experienced both having succesful campaigns and being persecuted for his believes.
We also watched the movie called Elemental about three very different environmental activists and had a skype meeting with the director of the film after.
As much as it was inspiring and educating to listen to experts, it was also nice to meet the group of young people from all over the Europe who are very passionate about the environment (in global and local aspect). The participants shared with each other the examples of violation of environmental human rights that concerned them most and tried to discuss the possible ways of improving the situations or taking action.
Cameron also gained new experience at the study session as he was there a facilitator and led several sessions including one on the activism.

The more on the Study Session and environmental human rights can be found on the blog "Environmental Human Rights" which was created to share the ideas and news.

More photos can be found here

Natasha