From the beginning of our journey we were not looking forward to traveling all the way from Prishtina to Cologne, but in the end, it turned out to be a rewarding experience. Besides the fact that it has a lesser environmental impact, it taught us that it is really nice and healthy to take more time and to experience traveling as a way of reflecting on the experience and having an adventure. During these kinds of travels, you not only get to meet new people, get to see new and exciting places.
When we arrived at the camp, we were greeted by the organizers that appointed us to a place where we could set up our tent. The next day we started off with a plenary, where we were introduced to what was going to happen that day and what tasks should be fulfilled. The great thing of a participatory camp is that we all do it together, and that there are no structures or hierarchies. Tasks like cleaning the dishes, helping the cooks, cleaning the toilets are things we do together. But we also have camp structure meetings and press meetings, so we are involved with this as well. We don’t only do practical tasks, we also attend workshops.
One of the workshops concerned climate change and migration. We were confronted with some data about which places would be hit the hardest by climate change. Spoiler alert: they are two continents with the most people that are the poorest. They are not able to fence climate change in the way that the richer countries are, the ones that caused it. We were invited to be active in the workshop and it was really helpful that it was interactive, because it kept us on our toes.
Another workshop was that of eco-feminism, or the presence of the intersectionality movement within the climate change movement in Europe, in which we got to learn a lot from participants coming from all over the continent.
Beside learning of the current situation, we also took part on the most creative climate protest– a Critical Rave in Cologne – which we created collectively with other participants of the climate camp – a music van, a lot of banners, flags and positive energy! As the van with the music lead us through the city of Cologne, we stuck stickers with our message all over the city. We chanted, climate justice NOW, and people from cologne joined us in our celebratory protest.
We’re looking forward to the next couple of days with the new-found energy from the last couple of days.
* Camp for future is organized by Young Friends of the Earth Europe
This grant is supported by the ‘Civil Society programme for Albania and Kosovo’, financed by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and managed by Kosovar Civil Society Foundation (KCSF) in partnership with Partners Albania for Change and Development (PA). The content and recommendations do not represent the official position of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Kosovar Civil Society Foundation (KCSF).
