Climate Fresk in the Spotlight in Slovenia!

 “Do you speak climate?” That’s the name of the project that put Climate Fresk workshops in Slovenian schools over a number of months. It led to a video exhibition between May 12 and 20th at the European Union House in Ljubljana. 

If you were in Ljubljana between May 12 and 20th, you might have had the chance to see the “Do you speak climate?” exhibition that was organised by the French Embassy and French Institute in Slovenia, as part of the French EU Council presidency

Valentine Morel, attaché for university and scientific cooperation and the French Institute of Slovenia, got trained up as a Climate Fresk facilitator and suggested putting together a project linked to the workshop. Isabelle Desvignes, director of the Institute and Amandine Dubreuil Perronnet, French language attaché got right behind the project. The first thing they did was train French teachers who went on to facilitate workshops in their classes for young Slovenians, which they filmed.

But that wasn’t all! The initiative was so successful that they decided to develop it further by engaging their European partners. That involved Hungarian, German, Italian, Spanish, English and even Geography teachers who all became facilitators and ran workshops in seven different languages.

Photo credit: Andreja Lorenčak

Photo credit: Katja Goljat

The video exhibition was built around footage of these Fresks in classes and directed by the filmmaker, Simon Intihar. The multilingual video features the students discussing the collective experience they’ve just taken part in and talking about their own ideas for tackling climate change. It’s not an easy exercise, particularly in a foreign language! The video was shown on the screens in the European Union House in Ljubljana for two weeks, between May 12 and 20, 2022.

Here’s what they had to say in the video.

On the opening night, the video was shown to the Head of Representation of the European Commission, eight ambassadors, to the directors of European cultural institutions in Ljubljana and to nearly 70 people in total. The French ambassador to Slovenia mentioned the latest IPCC report and thanked Climate Fresk and other NGOs who are working to raise awareness of climate change.

Other European ambassadors who were there that night (including from Spain, Ireland and Poland) took part in the Climate Fresk quiz! It was a great opportunity to raise awareness of the urgency of climate change to diplomats and also to bring them together to discuss these international challenges that go beyond national borders.

So, workshops in over 7 languages, teachers who are trained and motivated to continue fresking in their classes and ambassadors taking the time to play the Climate Fresk Quiz! A massive thank you to the French Embassy and Institute in Slovenia for taking on this ambitious project. Thank you also to Valentine and Amandine!

If you want to see the videos that the teachers made, you can find them here.