Education Switzerland Project #53432

Support our Youth Leaders for Sustainability

by oikos International

Project Report | Aug 15, 2023
Thriving in the ocean of impactful change(s) all around the globe

By Darija Miletic | Co-president

ICC 2023 in Copenhagen

Village news from the oikos International & oikos Community:

What has been evolving behind the oikos International scene?

Leadership development (LEAP)

Our flagship leadership program - LEAP YOUth has kicked off the 2023 cohort in March with an online meeting, followed by an onsite meeting taking place in Cologne, on 23-26 March. A total of 37 participants from 20 countries are taking on their responsible leadership journeys within the cohort, supported by the voluntary work of 29 LEAP alumni and 24 professional coaches.
Parallely another track of our Leadership Program - LEAP Researchers has kick started its third cohort enrolling 17 Early Career Researchers from world wide universities. Over the past three months, the program supported the evolution of their personal and professional competencies (e.g. practicing listening & empathy, conflict management, setting boundaries, leveraging their own strengths etc).

Transforming Education (TE)

oikos International opened the call for oikos CAMP inviting sustainable project teams from all across the world to join us for one week of co-creation & diving deeper into your strategic focus finding What projects need to evolve, from July 31 to August 6, at Ecovillage Vidalia, Catalunya, Spain.
TE Squad : Last Transforming Education Squad call has been focusing and putting into the center the question of: ‘why do you have all you need to change your school and how to find allies on the way?’
In collaboration with the Copernicus Alliance we are organizing this years’ oikos Academy and Higher Education Summit. A chain of onsite and online events throughout October and November ‘23 will be focusing on the central question of: “How we want to foster Collective Learning Spaces and integrate them into Higher Education?” Save the date and stay tuned for more very soon.

Community in Action

oikos Copenhagen in collaboration with oikos International held the International Chapter Conference (ICC) on April 20-23 at their local university! The ICC was made part of Green Week - the annual flagship project of the local chapter, bringing in 24 students from the global oikos Community, representing 5 chapters along with a number of local students. Once more we were touched by the inspiration and passion oikos Copenhagen team brought into every session they have organized and reminded how much onsite events are crucial to keep our community together and create long-lasting connections.
The Sustainable Finance Squad hosted ETHOS ESG, a series of virtual events that explored the role of environmental, social and governance data in the investment world, history of ESG, various strategies for implementing its criteria, the potential and limitations of ESG data, and its application in sustainable finance globally and more..
oikosAGORA - We have relaunched the oikos AGORA on a bi-monthly basis. A virtual gathering as a community, addressing topics like chapter's needs were well-perceived and attracted current oikees (e.g. fundraising and chapter member recruitment).
oikos Consulting Squad (oC) went strong in the last few months. They are empowering students in becoming resilient change agents that enable startups and SMEs to develop sustainable, data driven solutions for their business models. Each month oC has been gathering different stakeholders putting into the center topics like: insight into the current state and process of the consulting projects, diving into the acronym soup of #csrd, #esrs, #eutaxonomy and truly understanding where it came from, why it was established and what great opportunities lie ahead of us, storytelling behind every consultant etc.

Impactful stories and collabs that touched hearts and minds around the world:

oikos International represented student voices at New York City at the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) Global Forum and Positive Impact Rating for Business Schools (PIR) Global Summit, in which the next steps in transforming institutions and redefining the #positiveimpact of business schools with the engagements of fellow deans, faculties, and students.

Yet another oikos Community Impact Contest brought in such incredible and inspiring impact stories from within the oikos Community. Community Impact Contest is a participatory, fun and engaging way to invite our chapters to showcase and celebrate their projects. While celebrating each other’s work, this provides a platform to learn, exchange and get inspired within & beyond the oikos community. Following the voting, 3 projects were specifically supported and highlighted by the community. 6 chapters participated with 13 projects, twice as many as last year. We were impressed by the quality of the entries. After over 100 votes (40% more than in 2022), 3 winning projects were celebrated and they are featured in this report below.

1. GreenMap by oikos St. Andrews :

One of the winners of our Community Impact Contest, GreenMap project by oikos St. Andrews is an initiative spearheaded by student changemakers driving action and innovation towards sustainability. Through GreenMap, various local businesses, the university, and nonprofits alike have a platform for networking and exchanging on green and socially inclusive practices.

2. Chapter LEAP by oikos Graz :

The chapter LEAP hosted by oikos Graz started in February of this year with a total of 15 participants taking part. Over the course of the program, it hosted 5 workshop sessions on specific skills based on the choices and the needs of participants themselves.

3. Students for Sustainability Journal by oikos Warsaw :

oikos Warsaw wrote the Students for Sustainability Journal in both Polish and English making it easily accessible to both local and international students. It is a combined work of numerous members of the local chapter, which in its first edition reached over 1000 views, garnering positive feedback.

Thank you for believing in us!

Big thank you to everyone that donated to this campaign, this was our very first crowdfunding campaign and we were overwhelmed with joy to see each of your donations and growing support. You helped a student-led organization grow and widen their impact.

Stay tuned for more oikos magic and opportunities via our social media (LinkedIn & Instagram) and sign up for our monthly newsletter!

All the best,

Darija, Mahmoud and the oikos International Team

Links:

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Mar 16, 2023
2023 - we are ready for you!

By Darija Miletic | Co-president

What has been evolving behind the oikos International scene?

What has been growing at oikos International since our last report.
First, at the end of ‘22, we elected our NEW International Board, amazing individuals representing huge diversity of our worldwide community. 5 inspiring people took up a responsibility and a challenge to foster the oikos community and support our umbrella organization with their skills & competencies in fundraising, networking, legal efforts, organizational & team development together with community building.

Beginning of the year, with an idea to move towards a more sustainable workflows, self-organizing, human-centered way of making oikos and its community thrive, we hosted our bi-annual strategy event - TEAM DAYZ - where our whole oikos International team came together to dive deeper into questions like: Who & What is oikos International? What is our contribution to the world? What is the impact of our communication and how it reflects our work? What are our underlying values & beliefs around the topic of money? How do we foster team health and psychological safety at the workplace? How can we increase the sustainability of our work in terms of our salaries? etc. Courageously taking steps towards these goals and questions, one after the other, made us grow a lot as individuals and as a team, reflecting on our actions and impact, developing further ways to steward our worldwide community and strengthening each corner of our diverse organization.

Leadership development (LEAP)

We embarked on yet another LEAPYouth journey '23, and started equipping a new cohort of 36 diverse, ambitious and inspiring young students with the necessary competencies, qualities, practices, tools and global network to become conscious leaders in the co-creation of thriving and sustainable societies.
We managed to swing great success with our first ever LEAP Summit, organized and hosted by oikos LEAP alumni, where we had a fruitful & meaningful learning experience around participatory leadership, co-creation and collaboration. LEAP Summit gathered over 130 participants in total from 14 countries. Based on the extensive feedback of the participants and volunteers we have also created a strategy for the LEAP YOUth 2023.

Transforming Education (TE)

In collaboration with Club of Rome, Green Office Movement, Climate Student Movement & our TE team co-facilitated an impactful session at the Learning Planet Festival on the topic of “Co-creating a Travel Guide to the Future”, where 39 participants embarked on a co-creative and transdisciplinary learning expedition, nourished by inner development goals, is entirely in the hand of learners.
Our new Transforming Education Squad - consisting of multiple oikos chapters - started a new cycle of supporting each other on their ground work at the local universities.
Preparations for our next big transforming education event started asynchronously - oikos Camp - a week-long change lab which aim is to create a space for students & allies from all over the world to gather & leverage their change initiatives, supporting a wider transition towards sustainability.

Community in Action

Besides LEAP and TE, we kicked off the semester together with our community and tapped into the challenges & needs of our chapters, sharing best practices and empowering the feeling of togetherness.
oikos Houses (regions) have been also reviving & starting their new cycle togetherwith the first spring blossoms.

What's next?

We are proud to announce, that we will have a LEAPYouth onsite kick-off event taking place in Germany from 23rd until 26th of March!

What else is new in the oikos home? Oooo no, we are not stopping now, we are very excited that we have finally locked the place and the dates for our next oikos International Chapter Conference (ICC) hosted by our incredible chapter oikos Copenhagen from 20th until 23rd of April 2023! And all of you are invited to join! Follow our website and social media for more information coming your way very soon.

On the other hand, we are preparing for some important decisions to be made, for the following year, during our first bi-annual Legislative Assembly in April. For the first time after Covid pandemic in a hybrid form, onsite during our amazing International Chapter Conference in Copenhagen and online. And much much more.

And of course, the above mentioned oikos Camp taking place in Barcelona in the last weeks of July. Stay tuned for more info!

Thank you for believing in us!

Stay tuned for more oikos magic and opportunities via our social media (LinkedIn & Instagram) and sign up for our monthly newsletter!

All the best,

Darija & oikos International Team

Links:

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Oct 4, 2022
Stepping boldly into the oikos future

By Darija Miletic | Co-president

Mountain-high co-presidents' (over)view

Remembering how it all started..

Reflecting back on how the whole concept of two people leading a big international community of student changemakers into a more sustainable world with their head, heart, body and soul started just a year ago, sounds surreal today.

We are very proud to say that the alternative model of leadership we have chosen, gained deep roots for future generations of oikos co-presidents. We embarked on this journey with an idea to move towards a more sustainable workflow, self-organizing, human-centered way of making oikos and its community thrive. Courageously taking steps towards these goals, one after the other, made us grow a lot as individuals and as a team, reflecting on our actions and impact, developing further ways to steward our worldwide community and strengthening each corner of our diverse organization. On a wider scale, it's leading us to the outstanding execution of all oikos initiatives and a better support and connection to the community. We were very busy during the summer as well, and managed to swing great success with our onsite gatherings like LEAP Mid-Term Meeting, where we had a fruitful meaningful learning experience around participatory leadership, co-creation and collaboration. Besides LEAP, we hosted 6 amazing project teams in an eco-village in Spain for another oikos Camp, offering space for the development of transformational projects in higher education. Alongside onsite events, we reinvented internal information flows, and had a huge outreach of our alternative fundraising efforts thanks to our alumni community!

What’s cooking next for the co-presidents?

As we are stepping bold towards the last quarter of 2022 we are very excited about what is awaiting just around the corner - Carlin Lemke, as a newly elected co-president of oikos International, is coming slowly into the office in November and starting the handover processes with our current co-presidents, Darija Miletic & Sophie Charrois. This will be another exciting period since it will be the first time we are having a constellation of 3 co-presidents working hard to prepare the base for another fruitful year to come.

What else is new in the oikos home? Oooo no, we are not stopping now, we are very excited about oikos Academy coming up from 26th of October till 3rd of November an onsite & online change lab across 5 universities which aim is to created a space for interactive dialogue between students, professors, university management and other local stakeholders to collectively strategize around potential actions as a response to local challenges. On the other hand, we are preparing for some important decisions to be made, for the following year, during our second bi-annual Legislative Assembly in October. And much much more.

Thank you for believing in us!

Big thank you to everyone that donated to this campaign, this was our very first crowdfunding campaign and we were overwhelmed with joy to see each of your 70+ donations and support. You helped a student-led organization grow and widen their impact.

Stay tuned for more oikos magic and opportunities.

Links:

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