Background:
Dyfodol is to receive over £28,000 from GwirVol to finance this project, one of only two international opportunities projects they are to fund. Isabel met Chimgee, who is from Mongolia, during the climate change conference at Copenhagen in 2009. The conference had inspired Chimgee to create a movement for young people in Mongolia to take action to mitigate climate change. She has started an organisation called “Mongolian Youth on Climate Change” – 27 young people meet regularly, and receive some support from a small Mongolian NGO. They intend to send a small delegation to the next UNFCCC COP conference.
The group from Wales:
We will form a wide group of 25 young people who will take part in the project. Of these, 8 will have the opportunity to travel to Mongolia with 2 workers. The group will be recruited mainly from Swansea, Aberystwyth and Blaenau Ffestiniog areas, with 16-18 year olds being targeted, but the project will be open to anyone aged between 16 and 25 from Wales. Of the 8 young people who make the journey to Mongolia, 4 will have experience of taking action on climate change and educating their peers with Dyfodol, and 4 will be new to the organisation and in neither employment, education or training (NEET). Within the group, young people will work in pairs.
By train?!
Dyfodol believes that flying is a disproportionately destructive means of transport, and certainly not appropriate as part of a project that aims to increase awareness of what we can do about climate change. Participants will travel to Mongolia by rail – notably on the Trans-Siberian Railway through the Russian Federation. Travel time will be a productive part of the project!
