Publications...

In a world where disconnection from nature has increasingly produced environmental problems as well as a lack of physical, psychological and social well-being, we think it is important to acknowledge how important it has become to promote nature connectedness above all in youth work. This manual, addressed to youth workers and educators working with young people (16-25 years old), is meant to be a source of inspiration for integrating nature intelligence in their already existing programs and activities. The manual is composed of two parts. The first one gives an overview on the concept of NQ and the principles for how to facilitate it in youth work based on four main principles (WHOLENESS, DIVERSITY, CYCLES, FORCES) that are inspired by nature itself. Starting from the assumption of nature having some kind of intelligence, we thought of looking at it as a teacher and therefore identified four principles and a set of guidelines for each of them.  These are meant to inspire youth workers to look at nature as a facilitator, learning from it and mirroring its processes when designing and facilitating their educational programs and activities.

The second part of the manual helps putting the theory into practice throughout some personal stories that illustrate how these principles have been applied to nurture the four dimensions of NQ. We then present a stepwise approach for how to integrate the concept of NQ in non-formal education programmes. For each step specific actions are specified along with a description of outcomes. These outcomes help you to evaluate whether the steps and actions have been completed successfully.