IANOS Community Engagement Training at Samsø
Last week, a group of IANOS partners from the islands of Ameland, Terceirra, Lampedusa, Nisyros, and Bora Bora traveled to Samsø. This small Danish island is known for its community-focused transition to a 100% renewable energy supply, which will be fully realised within 10 years. Led by our colleagues Martijn de Vries and Thomas Nielsen, a group of 19 people participated in a three-day train-the-trainer session and community engagement workshops at EnergiAkademiet. The goal of the training was to train the project partners in involving the local communities on their own islands.
The first day consisted of presentations by each of the IANOS island delegates, sharing their island's decarbonisation goals and their experiences with community engagement. Hanze University of Applied Sciences also gave a lecture on developing a stakeholder engagement strategy for the island of Ameland. The day concluded with an interactive workshop by our colleague Shubhra Chaudhry on crowdfunding for renewable energy initiatives.
On the third and final day, Søren Hermansen, CEO of EnergiAkademiet, gave a captivating and interactive workshop that inspired the IANOS island delegation members in ways to organize meetings with stakeholders and citizens about energy projects on islands.
Conclusion: many ideas were exchanged, common challenges were identified, best practices were shared, and memories were created. Now the partners are ready to apply what they've learned on their own islands!
More information
Want to read more about the days, the program, and the workshops? We've written a comprehensive report about the training.
