On September 8-9, UNEP DTU Partnership (UDP) participated in the first Youth Democracy Festival (UFM) in Copenhagen.
Through a variety of events, debates, workshops and shows, nine workshop tents and fifty-seven stands, young citizens rediscovered what democratic engagement might look like in 2016.
The UN City workshop at the festival gave UDP a unique opportunity to ask a group of young citizens for their advice on how to engage young people in the SGDs and climate action.
Although they recognized the complexity in communicating climate change to younger generations, the group of young workshop participants were also optimistic about taking climate action, and that their generation has to be part of the solution. Specific suggestions on how to reach young people were drafted and put down on paper for UDP.
The youth’s message was clear: “If we need to understand this and take action on climate change, we need to be able to relate to it through examples of experience from other people around the world our own age, who experience the effects of climate change directly and every day. Even if climate change is difficult to understand, we can still engage through our own means and in different ways. Turn off the tap after use! Remember to turn off the lights! Just keep it simple…”
The UDP-team participating at the Youth Democracy Festival found it to be a fun and engaging exercise to draw inputs from the Danish youth.