Youth Environment Congress
The Youth Environment Congress (Jukss for short) is the nationwide meeting of the youth environment movement and sees itself as a forum for all ecologically interested and committed people. The so far last independent jukss took place from December 25th to January 3rd, 2010 in the Waldorf School Elmshorn near Hamburg. As part of a so-called 4in1 liberation congress, there will be a jukss in Potsdam from August 8th to 17th, 2014.
history
The Youth Environment Congress emerged from the previously separate federal congresses of nature conservation youth and BUNDjugend and is a follow-up event to the AufTakt , which took place in Magdeburg in 1993 at the end of an international star bike tour . Since then, it has taken place once a year, mostly over New Year's Eve, in different cities in Germany. The first congress took place in Göttingen in 1993/94 . Since then there have been others in Neubrandenburg , Freiburg , Berlin , Münster , Tübingen , Nuremberg , Dresden , Hittfeld , Darmstadt , Magdeburg, Bielefeld , Königs Wusterhausen , Berlin, Frankfurt am Main and Elmshorn .
The first congresses were prepared and designed primarily by the independent project workshops and the two large youth environmental associations ( BUNDjugend and Naturschutzjugend ). When the Federal Environment Agency stopped funding the congress in 1998, the independent sponsoring association Jugendaktionstage eV took over the organization of the congress. The number of participants has been between 200 and 500 in recent years, in the early years there were up to 1,500 participants. This makes the Jukss one of the largest regular environmental events in Europe.
Attendees
Everyone interested in ecology and self-determination is welcome on the Jukss . The vast majority of participants are between 16 and 25 years old (some are younger or significantly older). People with the most varied of interests come to the Jukss, e.g. B. to
- Finding ideas and contacts for your own projects
- Get to know like-minded people
- to further educate oneself in environmental policy
- to try out and develop other ways of life and decision-making models
- Present your own projects and pass on knowledge
- Having fun , making music, partying and discussing together
Content
The thematic focal points of the Yukss are partly based on currently controversial environmental and development issues - for example, debates about green genetic engineering , eco-technologies , international agricultural policy and energy generation were the focus of the last congresses. In addition, there are regular working groups on classic environmental policy issues, while tool working groups try to convey the tools for environmental engagement. Working groups that deal with internships and training in the environmental sector ( ASA program , Worldwide Work on Organic Farms , ...) also have a broad focus. There have already been nationwide voluntary ecological year meetings at several congresses .
Organization of the congress
The organizers of the next jukss usually meet at the previous congresses and make appointments for the first meetings. At the beginning of the new year "handover meetings" take place, at which the people from the old organizational team explain to the new organizers how the preparations can be made, where there is information about previous organizational work and what experiences they have gained. The new organization team will then meet several times over the next few months to make arrangements and organize the framework for the next JUKSS. Traditionally, the organization team dissolves at the beginning of the JUKSS and thus hands over all responsibilities and design options to the participants. The aim is that they behave equally , horizontally and in a self-organized manner and now take all the necessary work into their own hands.
For many Juksse, an office was set up in the city of the next congress during the preparation period, where participants of the Voluntary Ecological Year, interns and other volunteers could prepare the event and the materials, archives and technology necessary for the congress were stored. After the Youth Environment Congress in Magdeburg in 2004/2005, the Greenkids ' organizational office there remained and was taken over by the newly established Youth Environment Office. The background to this development towards a permanent office location was a. the decrease in liability within the organizational team. New office locations were no longer set up.
Self-image of the Jukss
The Jukss is not intended to be a pure specialist congress and therefore, in addition to dealing with environmental issues and socio-political alternatives, attaches great importance to the very practical questions of an environmentally friendly lifestyle. In this sense, it sees itself as a piece of lived utopia in which one can try out for a week how a more ecological and self-determined coexistence is possible. Over the years, a complex self-management model has emerged that is being developed step by step. The dismantling of formal and informal hierarchies , self-organization and free agreements are important keywords.
The JUKSS is politically located in the youth environmental movement of the 1990s. This is now hardly available as such. The last remnants of this independent and in some cases radical ecological movement are individual environmental workshops, project workshops and grassroots groups such as Greenkids eV in Magdeburg or equal associations of such groups such as the youth environmental network JANUN in Lower Saxony. The media of this movement included the critical mass (newspaper of the BUNDjugend Baden-Württemberg), the Ö- Punkt , the FUI (newspaper of the Federal Coordination of Student Ecological Work ) and the green sheet . Of these, only the first and the last-mentioned magazine now exist.
Due to the fragmentation of the youth environmental movement, the Jukss can no longer only be assigned to this. In the meantime, the participants see themselves as a mixed group, some of whom describe themselves as eco-anarchist .
criticism
The youth environmental associations that once co-founded the Jukss are hardly present at the congress anymore. The associations justify this with the fact that the Jukss hardly addresses its own clientele anymore, because it has become very general political and has moved far away from environmental issues. This is correct, as everyone is free to offer working groups and workshops.
In recent years, internal criticisms have mainly been made on the practice of self-organization. This requirement is insufficiently met, and often a few people still have to do the work for many. The debate is being held on the JUKSS website and above all in the green leaf.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from October 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from October 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
