by Arpine Galfayan

Is there life outside of the capital city? This is one of the questions young people in Armenia start asking themselves early in their school years. This question is, certainly, about study and work opportunities, but this is also about the possibilities of living an interesting and fulfilling life in small towns and villages. Thus, it’s no surprise that the team at EcoLab is comprised of people coming from all over the country, and most of us have left our hometowns and relocated to Yerevan, Armenia’s capital city. However, one little town lost in between forest-covered hills…

MitOst staff members share their reads which impressed them, they find helpful, interesting and inspiring.

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What to read?

• Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There by Rutger Bregman (en)
• Die 10 Gebote der Ökologie by Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek (de)
• Coming Back To Life: The Updated Guide To The Work That Reconnects by Joanna Macy and Molly Brown
• The Art of Travel by Alain De Botton (en)
• Don’t be a Unicorn, be a Zebra (en)
• Starting a Revolution by Naomi Ryland and Lisa Jaspers (en)
• Das terristrische Manifest by Bruno Latour
• 101 Easy Eco Friendly…

We appologise for setting the wrong link leading you to another story, find here the link to the the interview with Greta Thunberg:

We need to change the system

Greta Thunberg, 16, is a Swedish climate activist. In December 2018, her speech at the UN Climate Change Summit in Poland made international headlines after she criticised world leaders for their inaction. Barbara Majsa met Greta Thunberg for the project Sisters of Europe. Read more.

Mosta9bali — My Future in Tunisia

How a community development programme in Tunisia is changing young people’s lives.

by Ivo Krug

If you live or travel in Albania, you have seen them everywhere. If not, you may have heard of them anyway. The Albanian bunkers became famous over the past years. Built in an unprecedented collective action beginning in the late 1970's, bunkers and tunnels of different sizes cover the country. For years, they accounted for the biggest piece of Albania’s state budget — and for countless hours of forced labor. Luckily, there was no war to make use of them, and the socialist system collapsed after Hoxha’s death. …

An interview with Barna Petrányi, Pro Progressione.

MitOst and the 17th International MitOst Festival are invited to Budapest by the Hungarian organisation Pro Progressione. Our friends and festival co-hosts from Pro Progressione have become one of the most relevant actors in the international art scene in Hungary over the recent years.

Pro Progressione working with both upcoming and established artists as well as small-scale independent organisations and public institutions to foster international exchange and implement new types of contemporary artistic projects. …

The Toolbox is made for teams and grassroots organisations, initiatives, and informal groups, and particularly for civil society actors without access to the resources of a metropolitan city.

We would like to share a few tools from the digital toolbox with you. If you like what you see, we invite you to explore more tools online at civilsocietytoolbox.org. The Toolbox is available in English, Turkish and Greek. It will be adapted soon into Ukrainian, Russian and French.

From A to Z: Tools for Citizens

by Catharina Sligting & Stella Spanou

You might call it love at first sight. Which is usually not based on rational decision making. No, rationale had nothing to do with it; it was rather a case of mutual recognition.

Recognition of the similarities in being both located in Southern European countries, traditional rural areas, isolated and remote, with in-depth experience in their own local environments, not (yet) actively participating in national — let alone international — networks. But eager to open up, to gain new experiences, to attract attention, to create new stories, to demonstrate to the world the natural…