What is Youth Yathra 2016?
Youth Yathra 2016 is a
programmewhich focuses on “Creating Green Youth Leaders” who will be change
makers in action against climate change. This is a programme initiated by Eco
Friendly Volunteers(ECO-V)under a grant received from American Embassy Sri
Lanka. A 10 month training session each in Jaffna, Kandy, Matara districts were
conducted as the first stage of the project.ECO-V invited more than over 120 youth
(Yathrees)with the support of American Corners at each district and conducted a series of workshops for giving them the
relevant knowledge and information about their environment and how to protect
it by combatting Climate change during the 10 months. The themes discussed in
the sessions focused on healthy food, conscious consumerism, organic farming,
connecting with nature, effective communication and its relationship with
climate change. These trained youthYathrees are expected to be the Green
Leaders as well as messengers for their localities in the future leading the
climate actions. This will be launched as a “YATHRA” in the final stage.
Why Youth Yathra?
Now the programme has
come to its final stage and the Yathrees in three districts are ready to pass
the information to the general public as YATHRAS. Trained youth are ready to
conduct 3 Yathres in Jaffna, Matara and Kandy starting from August. The first
Yathra is YalrYathra which will take place in Jaffna on 5th and 6th
of August 2016. As a condition of the programme there was no financial
allocation for public campaigning for two reasons. One is that the Yathrees
should learn to raise funds locally and second is to encourage the public -
private partnership in combatting climate change and protecting Nature. It was
expected that this project to be a great
opportunity for all the people who are interested in protecting Mother Nature
to partner to serve and protect her.
Yarl Yathra 2016
The YarlYathra is the first Youth Yathra organized
by the trained youth in Jaffna under Youth Yartha 2016.
How do we do Yarl Yathra?
YarlYathra is a 2 day environmental campaign planned in Jaffna city. All
the youth who were trained during past 10 months within Jaffna will be joining
with 25 youth from Southern Sri Lanka. These Southern Sri Lankan youth will be
either past Yathreesof ECO-V or under current youth Yathraprogramme in Kandy
and Matara.It will be held on 05thand 06thof
August 2016. All the youth will meet in Jaffna on the 5th afternoon
and will join for a street cleaning campaign. This will be a learning
experience rather than a cleaning campaign for them to understand human impact
on Mother Nature. All youth from South and North will take part in this event. There
will be a gathering in the evening at American corner in Jaffna to share all
their experiences.
The next day (6th August) will be started
with preparing breakfast in Jaffna style and through this event all youth will
exchange the healthy food culture, practices and synergies while they make
their breakfast. Then the team will be walking around Jaffna city in creating
awareness on protecting Mother Nature and will return for a public exhibition
organized at American corner, Jaffna. The theme of the Exhibition is “Combat
Climate change as Green Leaders”. This exhibition is open for public. The day
two will be over with as award ceremony for YarlYathrees. Official invitees for
these events will be representatives from US Embassy Sri Lanka.
Eco Friendly Volunteers (ECO-V)
ECO-V (www.eco-v.org)
is an Environmental Organization working in Sri Lanka for last 15 years. We are
a team specialized in scientific research on Animals and plants and conducting
training on environmental conservation related topics. We have been working in
Sri Lanka for last 15 years under the topics of climate change, Green
leadership, Solid waste Management, Eco friendly Lifestyle, food safety,
conscious consumerism and Bio diversity conservation. We conducted research on Spot winged Thrush,
Purple faced leaf langur, Eurasian Otters and Peak Wilderness Sanctuary. The
Yathra as a new method of training Green leaders to combat Climate Change was
introduced by ECO-V in 2011 with the partnership of Journeys for Climate
Justicehttp://www.journeysforclimatejustice.org.au/
(JCJ) in Australia which is a partner organization of ECO-V. We have conducted
3 Yathres since 2001 namely, KelaniNadeeYathra( 2011 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfcefmB9OkI)
Papedi( 2013 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSEy3OY5Vjw)
and KolombaYathra (2015http://www.iucn.org/content/kolamba-yathra-2015-interfaith-journey-sustainability-sri-lanka).
All the projects are mentioned in our blog site. http://ecofriendlyvolunteers.blogspot.com/2015/09/kolamba-yathra.html
Project funded by American Embassy of Sri Lanka
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