Alpine Changemaker Network

A concrete step in this direction is the foundation of the “Alpine Changemaker Network”, a transdisciplinary network. The aim of this network is to promote education, research and development as well as practical action in the Alpine regions, together with exchanges between these. The network brings together organisations from the fields of education, regional development and the environment, transcending national borders, generational divides, institutional barriers and cultural approaches to thought and action. The aim is to create an environment that will promote the emergence of “Alpine changemakers” as drivers of change.

As a first pilot project, the “Alpine Changemaker Basecamp”, to be held in summer 2021 in Valposchiavo, Switzerland, will be a temporary, experimentally oriented actual laboratory, framed by a mentoring programme. Young people will develop solutions to challenges facing the Alps under local conditions and thus deepen their relationship with larger environmental issues.

The network and the pilot project will be accompanied by a reflection group. This group will support and accompany the conception, methodology, programme development, topic identification and dissemination of results, then carry out an evaluation. The establishment of the network and the conception of the basecamp are funded by the pancivis Foundation and the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU).