Hier ist die Ausschreibung für unser Seminar „Climate beyond Classism – Education and action on Climate Justice und Classism“ vom 11. bis 17.11.2024 in Rödental bei Coburg in Nordbayern. Dieses Seminar ist ein europäisches Seminar und wird auf englischer Sprache stattfinden, daher die Ausschreibung hier auch auf englisch.
Here is the Call for Particiapnts for our seminar ‘Climate beyond Classism – Education and action on Climate Justice and Classism’ from 11 to 17 November 2024 in Rödental near Coburg in Northern Bavaria.
You can click on the headings to find out more.
About the Training
The climate crisis threatens the possibilities for a good life worldwide – its effects are already being felt, especially in the Global South. Floods, storms, and heatwaves have a stronger impact on people with lesser incomes/ poorer people. At the same time, climate policy can disproportionately affect people with limited financial resources depending on how it is implemented. Even within the climate movement, people with little money or formal education often experience exclusion.
This type of discrimination that is based on social position is described by the term classism. Classism refers to disparagement and exclusion because of one’s occupation, income, education, or social background. Examples of classism include the fact that people with little money, without a university degree, or children of workers or farmers usually earn significantly less, are often portrayed in a simplified and derogatory manner in the media, and more often have to rent in areas with high environmental pollution, such as traffic emissions. Classism is the foundation and constant driving force of the capitalist economic system that exploits people and nature.
In our week-long European training „Climate beyond Classism– Education and Action on Climate Justice and Classism,“ we aim to explore the connections between climate issues and classism. The focus will be on how this can be discussed and addressed in our respective contexts.
The training is intended to be an empowering and solidarity-based exchange space for people interested in the field of climate and classism. Various methods of transformative educational work that BuWa has developed and tested in recent years, together with the Austrian partner radix, will be presented during the seminar. We will discuss and learn about connections of climate (in)justice and classism and reflect on what educational workers should pay attention to in order to conduct educational offerings on this complex topic in a sensitive and classism-critical manner. We will also discuss how we as individuals or (political) groups can respond to a classist climate policy/crisis.
The training will touch on various dimensions regarding the content: an introduction and contextualization of theories, a part on self-reflection and empowerment as well as developing ideas on how to take action ourselves. Engaging, diverse, and creative methods are as important to us as a capitalism-critical and intersectional approach to the topic.
Hard Facts – Logistik, Ort, Kosten…
When? 11.-17.11.2024 (Start: 11.11. around 18:30; End: 17.11, around 10:30)
Where? „Jugendfreizeitzentrum am Weinberg” in Rödental close to Coburg, Northern Bavaria
Who? People who are interested in the topic of Climate and Classism
Team: Trainers of the educational collective „Bildung für utopischen Wandel“ (Education for utopic change, http://buwa-kollektiv.de/). The team has own experience with classism.
Contact: You can contact the team for questions here: seminar-info@buwa-kollektiv.de
Costs: Thanks to EU funding, this time all costs including meals, accommodation, travel expenses and the educational programme can be covered. After the seminar, we will ask participants for a voluntary donation based on their own assessment, so that we can also finance future projects that receive less funding. Even if a donation helps us a lot, this is absolutely not a requirement!
Accommodation: The seminar takes place in a simple youth centre with multi-bed rooms of various sizes (2-10 beds per room). Not all beds per room have to be occupied in the large rooms. Needs and wishes regarding room occupancy will be requested separately in advance.
Meals & care work: The meals will be organised by the team; there will be plant-based meals. Care work is an important part of socio-ecological change for us. This is another reason why the group will participate in the preparation of meals and other care work tasks such as tidying up in small groups.
Access and barriers: The seminar house is situated on a fairly steep hill. A transfer for luggage or people who do not want to/are unable to walk the distance is offered.
The seminar rooms, bedrooms, toilets and showers are fully accessible. There are two height-adjustable care beds, a mobile shower chair and grab rails for the sanitary facilities.
We will have a quiet and retreat room in the seminar house.
If you have any other accessibility requirements, please let us know in the application form.
Language: The training will take place in english language. We don’t expact you to have a perfect English niveau (neither have we). If needed we can also offer some linguistic support, let us know about that in the application form
Children: The financial and logistic circumstances are not the best for taking your children to the seminar. We know that this can be an obstacle and how important it can be to offer childcare. Thats why we are still very happy to find ways to make your participation possible if you need to bring your children. Let es know about that in the application form.
Travels
The nearest railway station is Mönchröden. Coburg railway station can also be reached by long-distance trains. Berlin and Munich have many other international bus and train connections and are well connected to Coburg.
Air travel contributes massively to the climate crisis. With our activities, we still want to enable international exchange while organising our structures in such a way that flights are only used in exceptional cases. We want as few people as possible to arrive and depart by plane and we know that it is for various reasons often more difficult for people from the poor and working class not to fly. In agreed exceptional cases, it is therefore also possible to fly to the training.
Participants will travel independently by public transport or in car pools. Participants from Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Poland will not be reimbursed for air travel costs. We will support participants from Spain, Greece and Latvia in finding ecological travel alternatives. In addition, we will probably be able to provide financial support for any necessary overnight accommodation during the travel.
Travelling costs are usually paid in advance by the participants and reimbursed by BuWa after the training. If this is not possible for individuals, solutions can also be found.
More detailed information on travelling, reimbursement of costs and climate-friendly travel is available after the confirmation of participation with the infosheet.
Climate & Classism?
Both globally and locally, the people who are most severely impacted by environmental destruction and the effects of the climate crisis, despite contributing the least to it, are those who are affected by poverty or have low educational qualifications. This injustice becomes all the more obvious in local contexts, for example, when people in disadvantaged neighbourhoods can hardly escape heatwaves and traffic noise, or industrial pollution..
At the same time, international climate policy, and especially the climate movement in european countries, is often shaped by white, privileged, and middle-class people. Many demands and ideas around sustainability and climate protection have so far barely or insufficiently considered social justice (e.g., CO2 tax; promotion of electric cars instead of public transportation). It is unjust and problematic when people from certain demographic backgrounds are excluded from essential future issues and demands.
Content & Methods
Below you will find a first overview of topics we would like to cover during the seminar. The seminar plan will be developed in more concrete terms, incorporating the wishes and suggestions of the entire group:
- Introduction to Classism and Climate/Environmental Justice and Capitalism
- History and Examples of Anti-Classist Struggles and Resistance
- Classism, Capitalism, and Growth
- Self-Reflection and Biographical Reflection
- Emotions, Body and Classism
- Anti-Classist Environmental Work
- Anti-Classist Transformative Educational Work
- Examples of current anticlassist Climate Justice Activism
- Networking and Knowledge/Experience Exchange among Participants
We will use various interactive, participatory, and empowering methods such as group work, Free writing, collages, Theatre of the Oppressed, body and movement exercises, exhibitions, World Café, and more.
Who is this seminar for?
The seminar is aimed at people who are interested in the field of climate and classism and who are living in/have the passports of one of the following countries: Austria, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Netherland, Poland or (probably) Spain.
You do not need to be an expert or have extensive experience in these topics or in educational work. People who have been or are currently affected by classism are especially welcome. Likewise, individuals who already have prior experience in educational work or other political activities related to classism or climate justice are encouraged to join
The Training as „Brave Space“?
During the training, we will discuss social crises, structural inequalities, and our own experiences. These can be emotional topics. We all have different backgrounds and social positions that shape our world. Our seminar group will consist of people with various class positions. Therefore, it is important to us to create an environment where everyone feels as comfortable and safe as possible, and where there is room for sharing experiences of discrimination, critical self-reflection, and mutual encouragement.
While we cannot guarantee a completely safe space, we anticipate a diverse group and will work with the concept of the „brave space“ as outlined by Micky ScottBey Jones. In the beginning of the training, we will establish a group agreement that includes support structures. We expect a certain level of willingness and openness to engage with the organization of group processes, and for everyone to take responsibility for their mistakes and learning, which we also expect from ourselves as a team. We approach this topic from a anti-discriminatory perspective and emphasize on anti-racist and queer-feminist approaches in addition to classism criticism.
Registration/Application
In our experience, there may be a lot of people interested in a seminar like this. Therefore, please complete the application form by 31 August 2024 at the latest if you would like to take part:
https://cloud.freiheitswolke.org/apps/forms/s/XY8rZeQxHNy6tFnCWmqbeNA6
We will then get back to you by 15 September to let you know whether you have a place or are on the waiting list. If you urgently need earlier feedback for your planning, please get in touch with us.
It is very important for us, the project and the group that we can reliably plan who will be taking part. We therefore expect a binding confirmation or cancellation from you after our confirmation.
