AR: Activity Report 2025-26

The activity report covers the period from April 2025 to March 2026.

We Empowered progressive changemakers by:

Annual Work Plan: Keep your fist up and your head held high!
Building resilience of green youth organisation in Eastern
Europe

The Work Plan of 2025 consists of an international Resilience Building Summer
Camp as the first phase, followed by Local Actions realised in 7 countries
across Eastern Europe. Both activities aimed to support green youth
organisations in Eastern Europe to build resilience for operating within
environments characterised by democratic backsliding and deterioration of
democratic values, and maintain capacity to advocate for improvement of
democratic processes to counter these trends.

The first phase, Resillience Building Summer Camp took place in Chisinau,
Moldova, hosted by Gutta-Club on 7-13th July 2025. The Summer Camp intended to
equip participants with knowledge and skills related to resilience building for
operating in environments characterised by democratic backsliding, and empower
them to disseminate that knowledge and skills among their peers. It gathered 39
people, and was well evaluated (report of increased capacities: 4.5 out of 5 on
average).

The Local Actions aimed to enable green youth activists to disseminate further
the knowledge, skills, and resources related to resilience and by doing so
strengthen the capacities of green youth organisations for upholding democracy
and democratic values within different contexts in Eastern Europe.. We supported
following organisations and projects:

As well as the Local Action by the CDN Feminist Action Team.

Cross-Regional Meeting: Towards political autonomy of youth
wings

This year Regional Meeting was another time merged with Summer Camp. It focused
on the specific topic being the leading part of our new project with Green
Forum, i. e. political autonomy of youth wings. The participants created the
working definition of political autonomy (link) with the short roadmap to its
achievement in the areas of operation, representation, finances, strategy and
ideology; as well as discussed the membership engagement ladder that can be used
as resource by the Member Organisations (link). Both documents will be a basis
for activities realised with the support of Green Foum in 2026.

Study Session

The Study Session „Art and Cultural Cooperation of Green European Youth“ Study
Session "Canvas of Change: Youth, Culture and Political Participation" was held
from 29 September to 4 October 2025 in European Youth Centre in Strasbourg,
France together with FYEG.

Learn to challenge the systems of oppression - capitalism, patriarchy, and
imperialism = through brush, colors, pens, and art" was one of the key messages
shared by 35 young activists during our study session. The key learning point -
the critical role that art and culture play in shaping political processes.
Participants engaged in various workshops (such as performance, music, creative
writing, and zine making) and benefited from guest lecturers and rich exchanges
that were all viewed through an intersectional lens.

The participants created zine Corpus Erectus, and the institionalised the
Arts&Culture Action Team.

EYF Special Call for Ukraine – „Environmental Consequences
of War: Monitoring and Overcoming“

The international activity organised as part of EYF Special Call for Ukraine was
held in Sheptytskyi, Ukraine on 26-30.08. It gathered 26 young people with the
aim empower and mobilise them for cross-border cooperation in spreading the
awareness of the environmental consequences of Russian aggression on Ukraine,
and its cross-border effects on youth, democracy and human rights by providing
them with space, theoretical knowledge and skills necessary to advocate for
their rights related to the environment on the local, national and European
level. We discussed how to make the environment more resilient and how the
international community can contribute to the sustainable reconstruction of
Ukraine. participants created three campaign plans: on the consequences of
mining of Ukraine, the long-term consequences of Kakhovka Dam Destruction, and
the protection of the environment in criminal law, which were or are to be
implemented in adjusted form.

We are grateful for the town of Sheptytskyi for a warm welcoming and for the
Centre of Environmental Initiatives Ecoaction for materials and provided
workshop.

Training for Trainers: Non-formal Education and Green and
Progressive Politics

The Training for Trainers was an additional activity organised thanks to
additional funding from International Foundation GroenLinks. It gathered 10
participants from MOs to strengthen their capacity to design and conduct
educational activities within their organisations and communities by equipping
participants with tools and methodologies of non-formal education while
deepening their understanding of Green and progressive politics in the regional
context. It consisted of two parts: (1) critical thinking of values in the local
context (including discussion with Serbian MP Biljana Djordjević), (2) non-
formal education and project coordination training. The participants were
selected by Executive Committee, based on their activity and experience (up to
26 years old, and attending at least one event in the 2025, with high level of
participation), and regional balance.

The resource pack “CDN Non-Formal Education Guidebook” was created, available on
the website.

We Strengthened the Network by:

General Assembly

The 15th General Assembly of Cooperation and Development Network Eastern Europe
(CDNEE), took place 29-30 March in Zagreb, Croatia, hosted by Zeleni prozor.

The main output of GA was brand new Political Platform - a comprehensive and
detailed document that will be a basis of CDN advocacy during the next years. We
also elected Executive Committee, adopted activity and financial plan for the
next year, amended documents. Two resolutions were created:Saving the democracy
– right to protest in Eastern Europe, with emphasis on Serbia and Georgia,
Keeping Green Values in the age of AI. We also welcomed three new Member
organisations: Youth for a Green Future (Bulgaria), The Union of Young Democrats
(Lithuania), TG – Youth – Możemo and Tematska grupa Mladi, Možemo! - politička
platforma.

The political conference consisted of two panels: „Student Protests in Serbia
and Croatia: Striving for Better Education and Democracy“ and the round-table
„Be resilient!“.

During the preparation of 2026 GA, two workshops were held in order to create
the resolutions together with MOs in the policy areas selected via poll:
Arts&Culture and Feminism.

Feminist Action Team

Feminist Action Team started in August 2025 to create local action to build the
resilience women and non-binary activists together, inspire each other, share
experiences, create campaigns, and build a safe network. It covers the topic of
gender equality and feminism. The local action consisted of webinar with experts
on the female sexuality, sex work, and sex education in the context of Eastern
Europe and book club meetings. FemAT currently gathers 25 people and will
continue its work in 2026.

Arts&Culture Action Team

Arts&Culture Action Team was created after the Study Session to create the
second edition of the Corpus Erectus zine, gathering 14 members, participants of
the StS. The zine was published in February and is available on the website.

Effective Internal Governance

In 2025-26, CDN put more emphasis on its internal governance, strengthening the
work and position of EC and Office. The work will be continued throughout next
year.

Effective and Productive Executive Committee Meetings

We organised three EC Meetings:: (1) in Chisinau, Republic of Moldova on 5-
6.07.2025, (2) in Bohinjska Bistrica, Slovenia on 25-27.10.2025, (3) in
Bucuresti, Romania on 14-15.02.2026. The focus of the EC meeetings was as always
planning of topics and activities and making political decisions about the
network. The main topics of the meetings were: for the first meeting planning
the activities for 2026 and updating the IRPs, for 2nd meeting mid-term strategy
evaluation, for 3rd meeting updating the activity plan and GA documents
preparation. The minutes from the meetings are available on the website.

Due to strengthening the procedures, the transfer meeting took place online,
thus EC started work immediately after the GA and all the meetings were working
ones.

Office retreat

Office retreat took place in June, in Montenegro and focused on improving the
sustainability of CDN. The new transfer documents (main one, and for each
position) were created, thus improving the quality of onboarding and transfer of
knowledge in the office before new people arriving in 2026.

Refined internal documents

Internal Rules of Procedure were revisited and refined during EC Meetings. There
were 2 consultations calls regarding the changes in December, with the
participation of six MOs. Based on their input and internal discussion, EC put
forward the ready document.

On the II ECM, the mid-term evaluation of the strategy was discussed. The
strategy was evaluated well, with three amendments put by EC to be voted by GA
and Key Performance Indicators refined to better reflect the goals of CDN.

Diversifying Funding Sources

As mentioned previously, we received additional grant for Special Call Ukraine
that included up to 17% administrative/structural costs. We also sent one
another application (rejected), and planned to re-apply for SI Creative
Partnership (rejected in 2024), though the programme was not opened yet at the
moment of writing the report. Due to the capacities taken for organisation
additional event, we did not focus on smaller-scale fundraising.

EnhancedCommunication with Member Organisations

The Executive Committee regional responsibles continued good practice to
organise regional calls with MOs, in all the regions. During the Local Actions,
we visited Czech Young Greens and planned to visit Youth for a Green Future
(unfortunately visit was cancelled due to the health issues).

Internship programme

CDN open its internship programme Communication and Projects Intern in June
2025. We received 60 applications, and invited 6 people for the interview. The
selected intern, Sintija Krivina, works from September 2025 to February 2026
(prolonged for March 2026, due to the GA).

The internship programme focuses on the communication, especially during the
project. The main learning outcomes was creating and implementing the
communication plans about the events (mostly during the StS) and campaigns
(especially Stop Ecocide, organising smaller-scale activities (FemAT local
actions). The internship programme proved to be succesful, contributing to
enhancement the external communication and improvement of the Office’s workload,
with the recommendation to make the more precise plan of internship with defined
main fields of work and learning outcomes for each month of intern’s work.

Office changes

The term of Secretary General finishes at 2026 GA. Igor decided not to run for
another term. The call was opened together with the call for EC. EC decided to
recommend Filip Janković for the position. The transfer period will be in April
and May.

The contract of Project Coordinator finished in 2026, and PC decided not to
prolong it. We opened the call in February, which is still opened at the moment
of publishing the report. New person will be selected by EC before the GA. The
transfer period is planned for May and June (to be decided with person
selected).

The transition periods was planned in advance (more in the activity plan).

We Brought Eastern European Perspective by:

Enhanced External Communication

Increasing the outreach and engagement of the external communication was one of
the priorities for 2025. We managed to increase the quality of communication,
however, this was limited due to capacities moved to the additional educational
projects that were prioritised.

We organised two campaigns (below), as well as decided on organisation on the
additional campaigns in 2026 to be implemented around the GA: Culture. A Public
Good andStop Femicide. We experimented with new forms of content (as interactive
maps, quizzes etc.), while maintaining the seriousness of communication.

Biodiversity in Eastern Europe campaign

Campaign aimed to promote our political platform’s chapter on biodiversity
through showing the real examples of Eastern European nature that need to be
protected. It consisted of series of interactive instagram stories, posts and
reels, and the website page with the map of Wonders of Eastern European nature
with over 20 places submitted on instagram story question.

Stop Ecocide campaign

Focus of the campaign was to increase awareness of the russian ecocide in
Ukraine and to lobby for implementation of ecocide in the international law. The
campaign was created as the follow-up of „Environmental Consequences of War“
event. It consisted of 7 posts, informative website, 3 webinars and related
stickers with QR-code leading to the website.

Electionvision

There was three episodes of ElectionVision: (1) Elections 2024/25: Europe and
World; (2) on presidential elections in Romania and Poland; (3) on parliamentary
elections in Czechia and Moldova.

Networking with Green European Movement and Beyond

We continued good relations with FYEG, mostly in organising study session and
publishing joint statements (eg. on political prisoners in Belarus, on the
political violence in Serbia or on Bulgaria joining the Eurozone). We were
mutually represented at most of our events, and took part in each other’s
digital activities as speakers (eg. ElectionVision: Eastern Europe and World
2024/25).

We kept the good contacts with other international youth NGOs and were mutually
present at some of our events and digital activities, but finally did not submit
any joint projects. We applied for the status of delegate in Eastern Partnership
Civil Society Forum, not received information at the moment of publishing the
report.