In May 2023, a group of youth workers from Romania joined the Erasmus+ training course Gender-Driven Sustainability, hosted in the town of Benalmádena, Spain. This international learning experience brought together youth workers from across Europe to explore how gender equality and environmental sustainability are connected. The training gave participants the tools to understand how social issues such as inclusion, leadership, and access to resources can shape the way communities experience and respond to climate challenges. For the team from Asociatia Greenhope, it became a journey of learning, reflection, and transformation.
At the time, Romania was facing serious sustainability concerns, both in urban and rural areas. Pollution, illegal deforestation, and mismanaged waste were visible problems. At the same time, sustainability education was still developing. In many schools and youth centers, the topic of climate change was addressed mainly through facts and figures, with little connection to daily life. The situation was even more complicated when it came to gender. Although Romania had made some progress in gender equality, women and girls were still underrepresented in leadership positions—especially in the environmental sector. Many young people, especially from rural backgrounds or marginalized communities, did not see themselves as part of sustainability movements. They were rarely invited to take part in environmental planning or decision-making, and few projects were built around their realities.
For the Romanian participants, the training in Benalmádena offered a new way of seeing both problems and possibilities. It showed that sustainability is not only about science or technology—it is about people. The sessions explored how gender, identity, and access to power affect how individuals and groups respond to environmental threats. The participants learned that women and girls around the world are often more vulnerable to climate change, yet their knowledge and leadership are too often ignored. Case studies from other countries, including examples of community gardens, local decision-making groups, and school-based campaigns, gave concrete ways to change this dynamic. The Romanian team also saw how small, inclusive actions—like giving space to youth voices or using creative expression—can make climate education more powerful and human.
What stood out was the local energy in Benalmádena. The training included visits to community projects where young people and women were leading green transitions in their own neighborhoods. These visits, along with open dialogue sessions and intercultural group work, helped the Romanian team realize that youth work has the power to combine environmental goals with social justice. By the end of the training, they had a clear idea: to bring back these values and methods to their own community, and make sustainability feel more real, more inclusive, and more achievable.
Back in Romania, Asociatia Greenhope launched an initiative called Equal Earth. The project was designed to bring gender-aware sustainability education into youth centers and schools across the Prahova region. The focus was on creating participatory experiences where young people—especially girls and those from underrepresented backgrounds—could explore environmental topics while also building skills in leadership and cooperation. The program included workshops, outdoor learning, peer-led discussions, and creative actions.
One of the first actions took place in a small-town school where the team organized a series of outdoor sessions combining environmental awareness and leadership training. Young people worked together to clean a nearby park, plant native trees, and create signs with messages about climate justice. During the sessions, the youth also shared personal stories and reflected on how gender affects their role in their communities. Many girls said they had never seen themselves as environmental leaders before. After the activity, several participants started planning their own mini-projects, like green corners in school classrooms or campaigns about reducing food waste at home.
Another element of Equal Earth was a set of weekend camps where mixed-gender groups of youth from both urban and rural areas explored sustainable development topics through drama, visual arts, and nature exploration. These camps helped break down stereotypes and encouraged open dialogue. One girl from a farming village said that before the camp, she never spoke about environmental issues in public—but after meeting others and leading a group challenge, she felt ready to speak in front of her whole school.
The project also included training sessions for local youth workers and educators. These sessions provided tools on how to create inclusive spaces, how to talk about sustainability through a gender lens, and how to encourage equal participation in environmental planning. With support from Greenhope, several schools and municipalities agreed to include gender-sensitive sustainability workshops in their extracurricular programs.
Equal Earth also developed a youth-led podcast series where young people interviewed women working in sustainability fields, including environmental scientists, urban gardeners, and local activists. These episodes were shared on social media and in schools, and helped open up role models that many young people had never encountered before. The podcast became a space where young voices could explore both hope and frustration, and where they could dream aloud about the kind of future they wanted to live in.
The impact of the project was visible in many areas. Teachers reported more open conversations about gender roles in science and environmental topics. Parents shared that their children were thinking more critically about consumption, waste, and fairness. Some local politicians took interest in the youth-led proposals and began discussing ways to involve young people more regularly in city planning processes. For the youth workers at Greenhope, the biggest success was seeing how young people changed their view of themselves. They began to understand that they are not only part of the future—they are leaders of the present.
The Benalmádena training was the spark that lit the fire. It gave the team new language, new confidence, and new partnerships. Most of all, it showed them that inclusive sustainability is not only necessary—it is possible. It starts with listening, with making space, and with trusting young people to know what their communities need.
Looking ahead, Asociatia Greenhope plans to build on the success of Equal Earth by launching a new cross-border project with partners in Spain and Italy. They want to explore how different European cultures address sustainability and inclusion, and how shared challenges can lead to shared solutions. They also plan to publish an open-access manual for educators based on their model, combining environmental literacy with gender-sensitive youth engagement.
The training course in Benalmádena proved one thing above all: when young people are given the space to act, they will grow stronger, together. With their ideas, energy, and sense of fairness, they can build a future where everyone has a place—and where the Earth is cared for not by one group, but by all of us.