Introduction

The ECYC intends to promote and support especially children and young cavers in speleology. Children are always open for new interesting activities, especially in nature. They do like sports and at the same time they are curious to discover and understand the world around them. But for children it is often more difficult to get in touch with the speleo community. Therefore it is only logical to focus with one working group especially on children and young people. The European speleological community has gained knowledge and experience in underground exploration, science and protection, from which the next generation should benefit. The motivation of the ECYC is to unite our energy and experiences throughout Europe and develop further good practice examples on European level for the benefit of the next speleo generations.

Goals of the ECYC

The ECYC would like to build up a sustainable support for young cavers in Europe. Therefore the activities of our working group need to reflect the wide interests of the children and young people.

Possible activities and projects are, for example, …

  • preparation of educational material about cave related topics (e.g. science, cave protection, technics) in different languages
  • speleo training
  • support for science projects in schools and youth groups related to caves and karst
  • support for cave protection activities
  • support for mapping and cave photography workshops especially for young people
  • online exchange platform especially for children and young cavers
  • Young Cave Art Contests
  • …

Members of ECYC

Christiane Meyer (Switzerland)

Alena Gessert (Slovakia)

Maria Amparo Perez (Spain)

Claude Boes (Luxembourg)

Henning Wictorin (Sweden)

Thomas Matthalm (Germany)

Ferdinando Didonna (Italy)

Francesco Maurano (Italy)

Our first public meeting of the ECYC took place successfully at the EuroSpeleo Forum 2023 in Breitscheid (Germany). An exciting start for our new working group.

On the photo from left to right are: Malte Voß, Lorenz Ketter, Christiane Meyer, Jean-Claude Thies, Alena Gessert, Maria Amparo Perez and Claude Boes. Not in the picture, our member from Sweden Henning Wictorin, Thomas Matthalm from Germany, Ferdinando Didonna and Francesco Maurano from Italy.

For the ECYC it is clear that the children and young people are worth to be in our spotlights. If you are also interested to put the children in your spotlight, get in touch with us at youngcavers@eurospeleo.eu.

Survey on activities for children and young cavers

As a first step we would like to gather information about what is already being organized on national level. Therefore we would like to ask all caving federations in Europe to send us information about how you support children and young cavers in your country and what you think, this working group should focus on. For us it is important to know the status quo in Europe to efficiently organize our work for the best outcome for the kids. Our children should benefit from the knowledge and experiences of the „older“ caver generation. Moreover the ECYC would like to help to strengthen the exchange among the FSE member countries, so that everyone can benefit from the experiences of the others, learn from each other and develop further good practice examples on European level.

We kindly ask you to complete this online questionaire until 15.10.2023 (extended deadline).                            
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd56thbUZpZJTWTad_lOLaAQ0Yj1BLMJcv23oBGc1jeFIN3FQ/viewform?vc=0&c=0&w=1&flr=0