Youth and Environment Europe has worked along with the Council of Europe’s Youth Department at the European Youth Center Budapest in the Study Session “Fighting for a Sustainable Digital Future: Strengthening Youth Participation in Internet Governance” which has taken place in the European Youth Center in Budapest, Hungary on 11-16 November 2019.

 The aim of the Study Session was:

To explore the impact of the Internet Governance processes on the environment and understand its connection to Human Rights through the youth dimension. 

 The objectives:

• To raise awareness amongst young people about the impact of ICTs and their current, rapid growth on the environment using non-formal educational methods;
• Explore the connection between ICTs and environment with respect to human rights and youth participation in Internet governance;
• Provide the participants with a range of digital skills crucial for their future careers, online safety and participation, for implementing their follow-up plans; and
• Train young people in advocacy, workshop implementation and digital campaigning, so that they can use those skills while putting their plans into action. 

There were 24 participants attending from all across Europe and we were honored to host 3 brilliant speakers for some of the sessions:

Michael J.Oghia, Sustainability Advocate, for the “Imagining the Digital Future” and “Impacts of ICTs to the Environment” sessions.

We explored the different levels of youth participation in decision-making mechanisms, and for that we counted with Veronica Stefan, an international expert in Internet Governance & Digital Literacy who led the sessions about participation in IG. 

Dr. Massimiliano Fusari,photojournalist for interactive multimedia production, visual communication trainer and professor at the University of Westminster in London, guided us through “The image as Storytelling” sessions. We talked about visual literacy on social-political engagement.

We really enjoyed and appreciated their powerful contributions as well as all the energy and inspiration they brought to us.

We concluded a very intense and fruitful week in which we hope our participants enjoyed and learned valuable knowledge. We cannot wait to see how they implement it on their local organizations!