The ILC Europe, Middle East and North Africa (EMENA) region, is ILC’s newest regional platform. Officially established in 2017, it started as a result of a few of ILC’s then global members who, upon realizing their work had a national focus rather than a global one, decided to join together and form a regional caucus. Take a look at what some of our members are doing.
LENTAMENTE – (ITALY)
The "Lentamente" cooperative has started, with the "Sale della Terra" consortium of which it is part, training courses in agriculture, recovering abandoned land in the province of Benevento (Italy).
At the moment, 4 young asylum seekers are active in an internship where they are trained in the pruning of vineyards and olive groves.
Lentamente's goal is to include young migrants in agriculture, recovering abandoned land, in areas subject to depopulation, such as ours.
To do this, they try to create job opportunities for migrants, and to implement territorial development paths in rural areas.
In addition to working with migrants, the organization is starting to work with people who have come out of prison, believing that only career paths can give new hope to those who made mistakes in the past.
By combining these two issues, Lentamente will soon be producing agricultural products (some such as olive oil, have already been produced), which will have a specific brand that will enhance the social quality of production.
Dare un'opportunità per restare. Imparare a potare la vite, per esempio
INICIATIVA COMUNALES – (SPAIN)
Iniciativa Comunales is currently working on providing support and recognition tools to those communities governing natural resources on a communal basis in Spain. Currently, the organization is facilitating in Spain the process of registration of ICCAs (areas and territories conserved by local communities and indigenous peoples) in the UNEP-WCMC global ICCA Registry, as a form of recognition for those communities achieving outstanding conservation goals. Iniciative Comunales regulary organizes workshops addressed to communities governing commons along with other relevant stakeholders on specific priority topics: climate change and forest fires, sustainable use of land, research priorities on the commons, environmental conflicts, etc. Additionally, they are also promoting networking among those organizations, communities and persons interested on promoting the support and recognition of the commons at a European level, e. g. working on the framework of the European and Middle East Working Group on the Commons.
SEEDS – (JORDAN)
In cooperation with 8 organizations from 8 European countries, Seeds participated in a youth exchange titled Start-up Green Georgia that held between 3-14 May 2018. 45 participants met to share knowledge and experiences on the inclusion of young people in activities which are connected to environmental issues besides improving their business skills and awareness levels on renewable energy and energy efficiency.
The youth exchange designed to bring a greater understanding and responsiveness to social and cultural diversity that is strongly connected with environmental issues and the process of saving our planet,
Participation in this youth exchange is part of Seeds’ activities related to Seeds Green, which is a program aimed to connect youth with land issues from different perspectives.
NGO BIOS – (MOLDOVA)
NGO BIOS has developed the Organic Farming Handbook in Romanian and Russian. BIOS experts train the trainers from all districts of Moldova in Organic Farming practices based on the developed Handbook. The trainers will train farmers from all localities until 2020. All activities are done in the framework of the IFAD VI Program, supported by GEF.