International Young Naturefriends (IYNF) has the pleasure to invite you to this year’s Planning Weekend, the annual meeting where representatives of IYNF member and partner organisations meet to exchange ideas, network and brainstorm on the upcoming projects and future developments of the Young Naturefriends network.

The year 2014 is announced as IYNF Year of Urban Outdoors, aimed to foster youth making urban spaces more liveable, enjoyable and green through creativity, environmental and social action. 

Resilient youth, resilient planet is the main theme of this meeting, that will motivate participants to explore ways in which youth can address urban outdoors to make a positive impact on a global scale. We will look at the case studies of city activism, see the work of transition movements, and explore the cultural barriers and opportunities in organising city initiatives, as well as seeing how holistic approaches and outdoor activities could be used as powerful tools for empowering youth towards community building.

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Call for participants - IYNF Planning Weekend 2014

In 1975, a group of young people decided to get organised around nature-friendly values. Thus International Young Naturefriends was born. Probably, they didn't imagine that almost forty years later they would have changed so many lives.

All around Europe, young naturefriends share experiences in IYNF activities throughout the year. Apart from that, great work takes place everyday in the central office in Prague. Three employees and two volunteers take care of the activities and the organisation itself at all levels. This team is often completed with an intern. I had the opportunity to be the person to fill that position and I grabbed it without hesitation.

Although it's hard to quantify how much I have learned from this international experience, the essential thing is that I learnt things that I haven't expected to and I lived in Prague for three great months. I have to remark the warm welcome that I received from my colleagues. We shared a lot of good moments. We developped projects with many other people: members and partners, the presidium and all the people who collaborate with us. Together, we made things that will remain in many peoples' minds. We can be proud of that and I can be proud of having been a part of this great organisation which is IYNF. 

“Nature Friends” Youth Organization (Azerbaijan) in partnership with IYNF is organizing the training for trainers “Young Nature Friend” focused on outdoor education.

The training aims to involve young environmentalists / trainers to develop their experience and knowledge of outdoor educational processes. It will include 35 young environmentalists aged between 16 to 30 years (20 from Europe and 15 from Azerbaijan).

The training will take place 7 - 11 September 2014 and will be organized in one of the mountain areas of Azerbaijan. 

After finding out how gold is extracted, this week we discover why our EVS volunteer Alexandru Mustata is so against cyanide mining. In this article, he first explains what are the risks, and then goes through some infamous recent accidents. How long did it take the Papua New Guinea government to intervene to stop a spillage, and how much did it cost the US a very small operation? Read on to find out.

The IYNF Networking Conference 2014 – Resilient Cities, Resilient Youth, was held in the idyllic surroundings of Volterra, Italy, from May 28th to June 1st. Approximately 35 participants from the young Naturefriends network, including experts and enthusiastic newcomers, met to discuss practical topics regarding the IYNF framework, under the motto “Resilient Cities, Resilient Youth”, aimed at encouraging people to make our cities more healthy, liveable and sustainable; and how to connect youth and nature in an urban environment. In four days of intense activities, the programme was unfolded through methods of non-formal and experiential education, which included debates, workshops, dynamic spaces, as well as team building activities and games, in both rural and urban environment.

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Connecting MO's through resilience.pdf

Dynamic Space Report.pdf

40 years of IYNF.pdf

The Naturefriends Hungary (TFSz) are taking part once more in the Sziget Festival in Budapest, one of the most renowned music festivals in Europe. From 11^th to 18^th of August, hundreds of performances, including concerts, theatre acts, street art, activities and games will emerge at the Obudai Island in the Danube. There is an opportunity to participate in this big event and join the Hungarian Naturefriends in the NGO Island.

By Noémi Mátyás  

 Well, before we (Kristóf, Zoltán, Renáta, Me) arrived to Volterra, Italy, we had had a very long but amusing journey through Hungary, then Slovenia and finally part of Italy. 16 hours really flew away in this good company. After this journey and our arrival, to be honest, I was a bit frightened and shy and I just wanted to have a shower and go to bed. Furthermore I didn’t know anyone there at all. (Just to be clear, this was my first Networking Conference but not the last one, I hope)

Dear students, dear Naturefriends,

IYNF would like to react to an increasing amount of requests for Erasmus Internship at our office.

We were pleased that the opportunity we provide attracted many of you and we regret to say that we will not be able to give a chance to everyone who would deserve it. Due to capacity reasons we can only host one intern at a time and next opportunity will arise in the period September – November 2014. If you are searching for internship within this time-frame and you would like to gain more knowledge about work in the NGO sector, please contact Sarka Bambasova – sarka@iynf.org.

This week's IYNF Breakdown marks the beginning of a series of articles on gold mining, written by our EVS volunteer Alexandru Mustață. The first instalment describes, as objectively as possible, the way gold is mined nowadays throughout the world. It stays away from unnecessarily technical terms, opening up a path for a discussion on a very current topic. 

The European Youth Event 2014 is about to start, and IYNF will take 20 young people to the European Parliament!

 Lina Mombauer, from German Young Naturefriends, give us a nice insight and reveals some of her expectations for this event: 

by Lina Mombauer, from Naturfreunde Jugend (German Young Naturefriends)

 
In just a couple of days we will attend the European Youth Event (EYE) in Strasbourg, the capital of the region Alsace in northwestern France. This city with its historic city center, a world heritage site, is also the seat for many European institutions. During the EYE, some activities will take place inside the building of the European Parliament, the only directly elected institution of the European Union. Its 766 members from 160 national parties have to commute between Strasbourg and the second parliament seat in Brussels, despite many discussion about the ecological problems and financial costs. Maybe that will be a topic of one of the numerous workshops or expert panels about Youth Unemployment, Digital Revolution, Future of the European Union, Sustainability and Values. Lets see how this small city will look like with 5.000 young people from all over Europe.

The Petřín Park is a good place to rest and read the Green Toolbox.

On Monday the 13th my girlfriend Lisa and I came to the capital of Czech Republic. We are both active members in the Flemish Naturefriends organization ATB De Natuurvrienden and were excited to visit 'Praha' and the IYNF office for our first time.

Since we had a couple of days to visit the capital we decided to ask IYNF to help us guide trough the magnificent city. We are both quite interested in a green lifestyle, that's why we wanted to see the city from a green perspective and get to know the cool places in town. And what is a better way to get to know a city than by help of the local people? Although… when we met those locals, it seemed they weren't so local like we had imagined them. Together with the help of Alex, who is an EVS volunteer from Romania, and Miguel from Spain who is doing his internship at IYNF we investigated the city.

Share and develop new perspectives on sustainability in mountaineering

Dear Naturefriends,

Are you a mountaineering or tracking guide or on the way to become one? Are you curious how you can make your outdoor activities more sustainably responsible? Would you like to get new inspiration on how to deepen the emotional relationship of your participants with the natural and social surrounding? Do you want to share your inspiring stories and hear good practices from like-minded colleagues and friends in the mountaineering field from different Naturefriends organisations? And next to this climb up some beautiful mountains while practicing all you have learned?

Then feel very invited to participate at the upcoming international training course “The Way is the Goal”

We are absolutely delighted to announce that “Green Toolbox” is now available online on IYNF website and can be requested in printed version from IYNF office.

Green Toolbox encourages and inspires various sector organizations to apply sustainable working practices in their daily work and within their project and office management. It responds to the questions ranging from how we can choose the most environmentally friendly merchandise and gadgets to most socially responsible banking for our organization; what office and project management practices can do most good and least harm for people, natural environment and animals.  

Sustainability is a combination and synergy of social justice, ecological health, and economic vitality. This publication responds to a growing interest in sustainable consumption, addresses urgent global matters, and conveys the necessity for action. It aims to provide NGOs with the tools, information, and inspiration needed to introduce a wide variety of sustainable practices.

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Green Toolbox