International Hub Meeting: Sharing Project Results and Gathering Feedback

 The International Hub Meeting held online on November 5th was designed as an interactive 90-minute session with the aim to share project results and gather crucial feedback on diverse co-creation methodologies.

The meeting started with a brief welcome and agenda outline, followed by an interactive "Get to know each other" activity. A brief project overview established the context for the session. 

The participants of the event on Zoom.

The core of the meeting was dedicated to the presentation of four distinct co-creation experiences titled "50 Shades of Co-Creation". This segment served to share diverse project outcomes and initiate the feedback cycle:

    US presented results on the co-creation of a "final product" by the audience;

    SCN addressed the important topic of risks and failure within co-creation projects;

    MUST focused on the critical role of listening and observing for successful outcomes;

    SEM and EM highlighted results from co-creation with the community from the very beginning.

EM representative Sarah Klemisch described their collaboration with Ukrainians and former Yugoslav diaspora.

The most dynamic element of the agenda were two structured, consecutive 20-minute Breakout Room sessions. Partners hosted individual rooms, allowing participants to choose their focus area. This structure was optimized to facilitate discussion and allow partners to receive targeted, constructive feedback on the co-creation approaches and results they had presented. The meeting concluded with a presentation of Dissemination Documents (project results intended for wider use).

The meeting successfully provided a platform for transparent sharing of project results and ensured a dedicated, structured environment for gathering essential feedback from all participants.

Sharing the results of the Come Together project

After two years of experimentation, exchange, and collaboration, the Come Together project has come to an end, and we are thrilled to share its results with you! 

Together with educators, researchers, and social actors from five European countries, we explored one key question: how can educational activities on environmental issues become more inclusive, especially for adults experiencing social exclusion?

From creative workshops to collective exhibitions, from training modules to field actions, Come Together has generated many learnings. Here is a set of practical resources: 

• key principles and insights for designing inclusive mediation educational actions, gathered from the professional community that contributed to the project 

• a training guide to support professionals in building their skills on inclusive environmental education 

• more than 20 activity sheets describing educational and artistic actions conducted during the project

The booklet could be used to: 

• reflect on their current educational approaches and assumptions. 

• support training processes for educators and communicators who wish to adopt inclusive climate education methodologies. 

• plan or adjust existing inclusive learning activities for adults. 

• co-create formats and learning spaces directly with their audience, fostering genuine partnerships.

The resources are available here.

We hope they will inspire and support new initiatives for a fairer and more inclusive ecological transition.

Exploring Climate Change through Creativity and Curiosity

How do we feel, think, and talk about climate change? 

In our recent workshops at the ScienceCenter-Network, participants were invited to explore this complex topic not only with their minds, but also with their senses and emotions. Through hands-on experiments and artistic imagination, the sessions opened new ways to connect scientific understanding with personal experience. The workshops were conducted with young women aged 20 to 25 who are registered as unemployed or seeking work and currently take part in the FutureFactory Vienna programme. This programme offers free career guidance, knowledge expansion, and support in finding vocational training or employment.

Get hands on the physics behind climate change 

The first part of the workshop focused on experiencing climate change through science. Participants explored the greenhouse effect and ocean acidification through simple, do-it-yourself experiments. Visible reactions—rising temperatures and changing water colours—made global processes tangible and relatable. Using everyday materials from the kitchen or household, helped facilitators to connect scientific principles to familiar, daily experiences. Participants also reflected on how scientific knowledge is created—discussing, for example, why controlling variables in an experiment is essential for drawing reliable conclusions. 

Enable dialogue for mitigation measures 

Beyond the physical effects, participants reflected on what these changes mean for life on our planet. In a discussion game called “Climate Perspectives,” participants worked with cards describing different measures to tackle climate change. They arranged the measures along a spectrum—from “likely” to “unlikely” to be implemented in Austria by 2040, and from “desirable” to “undesirable.” An important aspect of this activity is to shift the focus of climate action from an individual to a societal and political level, but still be able to discuss the impacts on individual lives. This exercise opened a space for personal viewpoints and life experiences to be shared, linking climate measures to participants’ daily realities and values. 

Discover personal relation through creative expression 

The second part, the “Climate Collage,” created space for imagination and empathy. In a guided exercise, participants closed their eyes and envisioned what climate change looks and feels like to them—whether it evokes hope, fear, transformation, or resilience. They then sketched their inner images and turned them into collective collages that expressed their shared reflections. 

Together, both activities showed that climate communication can be as much about listening and feeling as it is about explaining and measuring. By combining scientific discovery with creative expression, we believe participants developed a richer, more personal relationship with the topic as well as practicing discussion culture and argumentation.

Observe colour change in water by acidification through CO2.
Photo: Nina Kramer (SCN) 

Measuring pH Values of normal water and CO2-treated water where carbonic acid formed. 
Photo: Nina Kramer (SCN) 

Participants look for suitable pictures for their personal collage work.
Photo: Nina Kramer (SCN) 

Assembling a personal image through cutting pictures and gluing parts together.
Photo: Nina Kramer (SCN)  

Diverse results of climate collages. Photo: Nina Kramer (SCN) 

 

Food production and preparation in Roma communities in Slovenia

 

What do we need for sustainable gardening? Facilitator: Aljaž Plankl, May 21, 2025, Maribor.
Photo: Sandi Horvat

Come Together! project aims to connect two challenges: environmental issues and social justice. We invited representatives of the Roma community to help design the project activities, with whom we chose the topic of educational and artistic activities: food production and preparation through time. 

Roma are a recognized ethnic minority in Slovenia, and their presence in the region dates back to at least the 15th century. Approximately 12,000 Roma live in Slovenia. The Slovenian Roma community is diverse, and we included different groups in the project: from Prekmurje, Dolenjska and Maribor. Roma in Slovenia still face significant challenges: social exclusion and discrimination, housing problems, challenges in the field of education and employment, and health inequalities. In order to include Roma in discussions about food production and preparation, which are significantly affected by climate change, we developed educational and artistic activities.

Discussion with Roma in Prekmurje on the topic of traditional food production and preparation,
May 24, 2025, Lendava. Photo: Sandi Horvat

Traditional Roma food to try.
Prepared by Sonja Horvat,
Nova pot - Nevo drom association.
Lendava, May 2024, 2025.
Photo: Sandi Horvat.

Sonja Horvat from the
Nova pot - Nevo drom association 

talks about the diet of Roma, 

Lendava, May 24, 2025.

Photo: Sandi Horvat.

The aim of the educational activities, which covered topics such as sustainable gardening, collecting herbs and making products from them, waste management, using leftover food and cooking was to provide participants with new information and enable them to try out new practices themselves. In doing so, we raised the question of what they themselves could do to make a difference in their local environment – ​​in some places they have land and can plant their own garden, but in urban environments it is more difficult to get to land. We also talked about which herbs are medicinal and what we can make from them, how to cook delicious dishes and use up leftovers, and about the possibilities and methods of waste separation. It was particularly interesting to hear about the history of the Roma community and its development based on nutrition. The activities on herbs and nutrition were prepared and carried out by experts in these areas from the Roma community.

The aim of the artistic activity was to sensitize participants to the topic, to recognize their experiences and knowledge, and to use this as a basis for addressing the heritage of food production and preparation in Roma communities. The result of this activity is the recording of selected heritage narratives, which will become part of the newly created Roma heritage archive, which will be kept by SEM. 

Herbal corner at the premises of the Roma association,
June 6, 2025, Šentjernej. Photo: Sandi Horvat. 

             

We carried out activities for the Roma community in Lendava, Maribor and Šentjernej. At the request of the organizers, who provided the space and participants for the activities in which they recognized potential, we carried out activities for two additional groups: for students at the initiative of the Lendava People's University (which operates in a multicultural environment where the Roma community and the Hungarian minority coexist) and for long-term unemployed individuals at the initiative of the NGO EPEKA; both organizations were part of our activity design meetings. In addition, we hosted a group of Roma from Prekmurje at the museum, who viewed the permanent exhibition Between Nature and Culture, and then talked about their heritage of food production and preparation. In Šentjernej, we were also joined by a representative of the Ministry of Labor, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, Peter Dirnbek Vatovec.

95 people participated in the educational activities and 93 in the artistic activities. The implementation of the activities was also documented with a short film available here.

Many thanks to all participants and all facilitators for the exceptional gatherings and exchange of knowledge and experiences!

Aljaž Plankl talks about preparing the soil for sustainable gardening in the garden of the founders of the Roma Association, June 6, 2025, Šentjernej. Photo: Sandi Horvat.