How good it feels to sleep an entire night in a real bed, and to take a warm shower before a great breakfast with who seems to be the sweetest mum on earth ! We left the cute little house around 1 PM with the shared wish to be adopted some day in Kathrin's family ! Running after the train and half an hour later, we are in Köln Hauptbahnnof, seated in a café, organising the next steps of our trip through Europe. Tonight will be Ghent, where the ¨Flemish Jong Groen are organising a Climate Action at Ghent St Pieters train station, and we will for the next days join the German Grûne Jügend bus tour over Germany.

Ghent St Pieters trainstation, with a beautiful... Belgian weather:-)

We arrive at 6.35 PM at the trainstation, and wait dozens of minutes wondering more and more if the whole action was a joke, as we are alone in an empty trainstation. But around 7 PM, we see the first light green t-shirts and we know we are at the right place. We are welcomed by a dozen of Jong Groen, activists and young candidates for the Flemish elections. On the 25th May, the Flemish don't have one, nor two, but three elections planned : in these conditions, it is difficult to focus on the European topics. Thus, their communication and the action is more widely concerning youth and their young candidates on several elections levels. Sara Matthieu, chair member of the EGP, and Bram Van Braeckevelt, Ghent city consellor, are young candidates at the local level, and campaigning along Eline, young candidate for the European Parliament.

Today they organise a Climate Action, targeted at West Flanders people and mostly students who come to Ghent for the week for their studies. Indeed, West Flanders is situated way below the sea level, and is subject of threats from rising sea level. The idea of the action was thus to “welcome the climate refugees” that were arriving from West Flanders by the train to the Ghent St Pieters Station.

For about three hours, we distribute flyers and spoke with the pageants about the importance of voting for the coming elections, and we rose awareness on the proximity of climate risks, even  for European countries, in a funny and original way !

When the sun (or its absence) begins to sets, we come back in the car with Bram Van Braeckevelt who drives us to Saraswati Matthieu’s house, where we get a last glass of wine, while discussing of the upcoming elections, and we go to bed, wishing for the best in Flanders for the Jong Groen.

Insecten, exquise bron van eiwitten met imagoprobleem

In Antwerpen organiseerde Jong Groen een insecten-proeverij. Initiatieven als deze rijzen als paddestoelen uit de grond en terecht. Consumptie van insecten heeft namelijk ontzettend veel pluspunten. Het is niet voor niks dat 80 % van de wereldbevolking frequent een insect verorbert, vertelde Bart Staes, de Afgevaardigde van de Europese Groene Fractie, na de proeverij.

Per jaar eten een…