Youth Art for the Earth - carrying on the mission of Paint The Change project

Paint The Change, Subotica

Youth Art for the Earth - YAFE is a project based on the idea that art is an excellent tool and method of learning that can have a strong impact and bring about change in the local community. YAFE aims to engage and empower young people to formulate and convey messages about social responsibility and environmental sustainability through public street art.

Fund B92, together with partner cultural organizations across Europe, will conduct educational workshops and mural painting workshops for older teenagers from vulnerable marginalized communities over the next few months. Local educators, teachers, and artists will work with them. Teachers will engage the youth in guided conversations, while artists will assist them in expressing and visualizing their ideas. The goal of the workshops is to encourage these young individuals to find their voice and desire to participate in addressing environmental conservation issues by developing their creative and critical thinking skills and translating them into a significant artistic creation that becomes ingrained in the culture and history of their community.

YAFE follows the successful Creative Europe project called Paint The Change, where educational and artistic workshops were also organized to initiate conversations about European Union values such as inclusion, diversity, environmental stewardship, and social cohesion within local communities. Within that project, Fund B92 collaborated with Paint the Change organization on the creation of nine murals in Serbia, Greece, and the United Kingdom from 2019 to 2021.

Street art has proven to be an excellent means of communication and initiating debates, greatly contributing to public spaces, with the most significant positive impacts being reflected in the local community. The outcomes of the Paint The Change project confirmed that through the collaborative creation of engaged street art, young people are empowered, develop new skills, and strengthen their capacities. In line with this, Fund B92 and its partners will strive to replicate successful results and go further in promoting inclusion and environmental sustainability within YAFE through:

• Involving educators and street artists in implementing this innovative program.
• Engaging up to 120 young participants in interactive workshops that develop creative and critical thinking skills.
• Producing six artworks on walls in different cities through a collaborative creation process.
• Expanding the discussion beyond the workshop through film and digital media.

Wherever possible, innovative eco-friendly technologies will be used, such as paint that reacts with harmful nitrogen oxides, which are produced as a result of vehicle emissions, factory operations, and power plants, neutralizing them through a chemical process, with rain subsequently washing away the deposits.

YAFE project activities will be implemented by cultural organizations from France, Slovenia, and Serbia:

• Nobulo and Urban Art Crew from France, with a mission to promote international culture and art, with a particular focus on street art. This organization has been promoting the work of urban artists worldwide since 2007.
• IRDO (Institute for Social Responsibility Development) from Slovenia, engaged in research and development of social responsibility in Slovenia and beyond since 2004. IRDO serves as a center for activists in this field, regardless of whether they come from government institutions, businesses, or other organizations, organizing and coordinating activities aimed at raising awareness.
• Fund B92 from Serbia, a nonprofit non-governmental organization that creates and implements creative, cultural, and philanthropic campaigns for positive social change. Established in 2004, the Fund continues the mission of the B92 media company - promoting a decent, responsible, and just society in Serbia and the region.

The Youth Art for the Earth project was came to be as an initiative of Paint the Change organization from London in 2015 to bridge social activism and street art. Over the past seven years, over 60 murals have been painted worldwide on every continent, reaching millions of people through digital and electronic media thanks to its unique blend of youth engagement, street art, and awareness-raising campaigns.

However, it should be noted that murals are only one part of the project. Beyond art, the focus lies in establishing positive social values such as non-discrimination, the right to education and information, as well as the environment, which is also the case in the Youth Art for the Earth project.

Activities in Serbia:

In Serbia, this project will be implemented together with international partners from March 2023 to February 2025 (24 months). The project will involve senior high school students through workshops on youth art and sustainability. Two eco-friendly murals will be painted during the project, in Pančevo and Bor, with the entire process documented to create an international documentary film about project activities in all three participating countries. To further expand the project's mission, educators working with young people will develop a shared guide for workshop implementation for general use, which should serve all educators interested in transmitting knowledge in the field of environmental protection and ecology.

We invite you to watch a short film created as part of the previous project: "The Power of Youth: Street Art for Nature Protection and Social Diversity" - https://youtu.be/eW0rrqTHKcU

For more information about the Paint the Change project, you can visit the following link: http://fondb92.org/sr/oslikaj-promenu.1.237.html

All project activities will be published on the website and social media platforms of Fund B92.