Participation 4 Change: People at the Center of Change is a project implemented by Mani Tese Ets, Deafal Ong and Siena Art Institute and supported with Otto per Mille funds from theSoka Gakkai Italian Buddhist Institute.

The project stems from the partners’ long-standing commitment to promoting Sustainable Development through community outreach, cooperation, education and mobilization initiatives.

The devastating impacts of the extreme weather events that frequently hit our territories show us how the climate crisis is an increasingly alarming phenomenon and how no one can consider themselves safe from its effects. There appears to be an urgent need to involve and activate local communities in the development of widespread, effective and shared strategies to prevent and combat climate change.

The project promotes a set of actions that, involving communities in the provinces of Florence and Siena (more than 1.26million inhabitants) with a focus on young people, spread behaviors and forms of active participation aimed at combating climate change and mitigating anthropogenic impacts.

Specifically, the project consists of:

1) Knowledge dissemination and youth awareness

– 16 ResearchAction workshops in Secondary School Institutions.

– 16 co-design meetings with the teachers of the school institutes involved in the provinces of Florence and Siena

– A training course for about 120 teachers and educators

– a Climate Summer Camp aimed at 30 young people from the two territories.

2) Empowerment of citizens, social networks, youth and institutions

– Participatory workshop path aimed at young adults (through 2 community engagement actions) for the development of 4 formats of artistic-creative workshops that will serve to raise awareness of climate change and environmental sustainability

– Establishment of two territorial networks that will create two participatory planning tables to bring out, enhance and consolidate experiences of environmental and social sustainability in the communities of intervention and foster shared local solutions to combat climate change;

– production of two papers that will contribute to the Climate Action Plan, the final product of the project in each of the two territories involved.

3) Community involvement for shared climate action.

– two public events in the two provinces aimed at promoting a citizen survey designed to identify perceptions on climate crises and community choices on consumption, mobility, energy, …

– Two public events to give back to affected communities with proposals to promote a sustainable future in which relationships, exchange of best practices, and mutual support are central

– a climate awareness campaign with the aim of synthesizing the contributions that have emerged in two Action Plans for the two territories, two real maps with identified community commitments, places and actors engaged in activation to counter the climate crisis, good practices of sustainable citizenship.

The planned activities will involve a total of

• 400 secondary school students
• 120 secondary school teachers and/or environmental educators
• 30 young people aged 16 to 20 from other backgrounds
• 10 young people aged 18 to 35 from other backgrounds
• 60 representatives of various social actors, informal groups, associations, public and private bodies in the project territories
• 650 citizens