Belonging to Nature: the Heart of Wellbeing

The training activity took place

in Slovenia and Iceland (2022j

organised by KA2 Icelandic NA

May 2022 and September 2022

Reference person

Mattias Buysens

(co-trainer)

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Aims & objectives

- To develop integral knowledge and practices that can contribute to recovering the deep psychosomatic awareness of being part of the Earth
(nature-connection), which implicates an ecological awakening and restoration of our relationships with the natural world.
-To support youth workers
and educators to provide young people with opportunities for enhancing their capacities for wellbeing and socionatural responsibilities in a more-than-
human-world.

We understand wellbeing as a capacity to adapt to changes and new ecological conditions in regenerative and creative ways for thriving life.

Target group & international/intercultural composition of the group & team

The training journey was designed for 24 participants from Slovenia, Spain,Portugal, Cyprus, Iceland, Belgium (4 per each country).

Target Group: Youth workers and related practitioners that work directly with young people. We wish to work with people who are motivated to learn about
these topics and who are ready to commit to the whole journey.

Training methods used & main activities

We worked in a holistic manner by including in our journey the three dimensions of human agency represented by “Heads, Hearts & Hands”, which
means that we aim to explore cognitive/intellectual concepts, emotional/intuitive insights, and embodied/active expressions of our unique
and personal connection with nature and wellbeing, and how we can communicate and guide others in their own journey of discovery.

This was all done in a non-formal way starting from experiences of the participants before, during and inbetween the trainings.

Outcomes of the activity

The outcome was even better then we imagined. Because of the fact that we had two training moments we were able to create a real feeling of community with the involved group. We also created a lot of space for participants to experiment and grow into their connection with and to nature. Inbetween the training participants were able to try out activities with their targetgroup and reflect upon this during the last training in Iceland.

The outcomes are to be found on this website:
https://belongingtonature.com/

Your tasks and responsibilities within the team

I was part of the team of 6 to create the background for this KA2.

For the two trainings I was, together with 2 other trainers, part of the trainingsteam. The 3 of us prepared the 2 trainings and we facilitated these trainings together.