Workshop - Burning Waters: Hope and despair in Europe

Dates
When: 2024-05-30 - 2024-06-05
Arrivals from 10:00 of the 30 May
Ends at 21:00 of the 05 June

Water is a symbol for life. It nourishes body and soul. Water serves for survival as well as for our visions for a sustainable future. It can destroy stone and let the desert blossom. At the moment water burns at many places and we have to look forward to fight the fire. This European Youth Dialogue invites young adults to explore water in its different dimensions.

Dried up riverbeds in Italy, historic floods that make people lose their homes in Germany, extreme droughts in the south of Spain, the garden of Europe, where clean water serves agriculture for export instead of fulfilling the needs of local residents: Water is the basis of life and a cause for inequality and conflicts in Europe. While the continent is also known for its nice beaches and beautiful lake areas, the Mediterrean Sea is at the same time turning into a European frontier – a space some people can hardly cross, or only under extreme danger of death.

What do you asssociate with water? We will work with our own imaginations around water to discuss possible solutions to burning conflicts around water. How can we use water as a symbol of hope for new life and liveliness? How can we use and work with water as a metaphor for movement and smoothness for creating visions for Europe and for living together as Europeans and world citizens? Water is a natural resource; what can we do in order to use resources like water sustainably and make them accessible in a just way? What if we thought of water as a basic resource that is not a commercial good, but access to water a human right? What do we want to change in our societies for a Europe of hope, and not of despair?

Let´s paint a future to overcome burning waters, a future in which life overcomes a culture of death.

In this European Youth Dialogue, we will discuss how water is shaping European future today. We will do this in interactive and creative workshops and with the aim of producing a common vision of eco-justice and of how to live together sustainably in Europe.

This workshop is organized in cooperation with the Centro Ecumenico Agape and in the context of Oikosnet Europe, a network of Christian academies and laity centres throughout Europe.

Registration and details:

Participation in the workshop is free of charge. We will cover costs of accommodation and meals during the workshop. Young adults between the age of 18 and 26 can participate. The workshop will be held in English. If you would like to participate, fill the form below or send an email to ufficio@agapecentroecumenico.org with a few lines about yourself and your motivation to take part in the workshop.

The workshop starts the 30th of May at 10:00 and ends the 5th of June at 21:00 in the evening.