The Baltic Sea Youth Camp

From the 8^th to the 11^th of June the Baltic Sea Youth Camp took place in Gdansk, Poland.

More then 100 young people aged between 18 and 25, from all over the Baltic Sea Region (Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia Russia, Denmark, Finland, Ukraine, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Germany), participated to the 3days festival. The project, funded by the Council of the Baltic Sea States Project Support Facility, involved several partners: Baltic Sea States Subregional Co-operation (BSSSC, lead partner), Union of Baltic Cities (UBC), Euroregion Baltic (ERB) and the Baltic Sea Cultural Centre (BSCC) in Gdansk, with the support of Policy Area Culture (of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR)).

The main goals of the camp were to build mutual understanding among the youngsters of the Baltic Sea Region, to raise the voice of the youth and their awareness and knowledge on the sustainable development goals.

The event was thought in order to raise youth participations in the decision-makin process, in fact the camp was the occasion to write the Youth Declaration: “Nothing about us, without us!!” The Youth Declaraton was the common work of all young participants, under the guidance of Martin Rümmelein, a youth representative board member of the BSSSC.

During the camp several workshops and parallel sessions were organized:

• Sustainable Development Goals presentation, by Olga Zuin;
• Circular Economy, sustainable cutlery, by Gdańsk University of Technology;
• Culture as a tool for mutual understanding, by Marcus Hagemann, ARS Baltica;
• Baltic University Programme – Systemic thinking on Sustainabilit;
• Idea development: A floating University on the Baltic Sea aligned with the SDGs;
• Sustainable fashion workshop, by Elco
• Climate action workshop: What’s my CO2 footprint?;
• Business role playing game: Maritime spatial planning – you are the decision maker! ;
• The importance of trans-border cooperation for security in the Baltic Sea Region;
• EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR);
• Creative workshop “Windbreaks”: What connects and separates the cultures of the Baltic Sea Region?;
• Live action role play – “The Abyss” (Sirius Game Studio);
• Listening to the world through meditation: acoustic ecology or soundscape studies, discipline studying the relationship, mediated through sound, between human beings and their environment;
• DNA: See the unseen, by Biotechnological laboratory;
• Polish ecological club – How can we protect the Baltic sea?;
• ABCD – ARS BALTICA Creative Dialogue;
• European public sphere debating.

On the last day of the festival, the young people had the opportunity to express their ideas and the Youth Declaration to politicians and authorities.

Furthermore, some representatives of the Baltic Sea Youth Camp, presented the Youth Declaration during the Participation Day and also the 10^th 10th Annual Forum of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region 2019, which took place in Gdansk on the 11^th, 12^th and 13^th of June.

You can read the full Declaration here:
https://www.balticyouthcamp.org/declaration

The 1st Baltic Sea Youth Camp was a success and represents one of the first steps for young people working together for a better world!