Transformative climate resilience education for children and youth: From Climate-Anxiety to Resilience, creativity, connection, and regeneration

Sustainability and climate education tend to focus on environmental facts, whilst little room is given to inner dimensions of sustainability and climate change. Human inner development and potential that are needed for addressing societal challenges are hardly considered. Consequently, children and youth increasingly experience climate anxiety, associated overwhelm and denial. CLARITY aims to address these challenges by (1) enhancing educators' skills for dealing with climate anxiety and nurturing inner resilience of learners, and (2) supporting more integrative  approaches that link inner and outer dimensions of transformation. Based on the GreenComp Framework for children and youth education and an inter- and transdisciplinary co-creation process, we will develop an innovative educators toolbox (that links psychological, creative and ecological approaches) and train educators in implementation. Through online hubs we will support related knowledge exchange and shifts in underlying paradigms and approaches. As a result of the project, children/youth educators will be better trained to provide social, emotional, ethical and trauma-informed education that supports climate resilience across individual, collective, and system levels. This does not only involve enhancing mental wellbeing of children and youth and building their capacities as transformative change-agents. It also involves creating a field of change through more regenerative cultures and communities of practice needed to address climate change and other societal crises. Project partners of this ERASMUS+ project include: Lund University, One Resilient Earth, REAL School Budapest, Climate Creativity, Legacy17, and The Vision Works.