"Time to Move Together to a Greener Future"

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"Youth and Civil Initiatives in the Rose Valley" NGO

Organisation:

"Youth and Civil Initiatives in the Rose Valley" NGO

Country:

Bulgaria

About organisation:

Our NGO was established in 2007 with the main aim to foster active youth citizenship and volunteering, providing opportunities for young people's personal and professional development as well as raising their awareness on important global issues such as human rights protection, gender equality, social inclusion and equal rights for everyone, fighting climate change, fostering a healthy lifestyle and sport for all. Since 2009 we have been managing the Youth Information Centre of Karlovo, which is a Eurodesk point providing useful information and educational mobility opportunities to the young people from our Municipality. Annually we celebrate important dates such as Europe Day, Earth Day, World Environment Day, International Youth Day, International Tolerance Day, Human Rights Day, Volunteer's Day, the Time to Move Campaign with interesting youth-led projects and activities.

Title of the project

"Time to Move Together to a Greener Future"

Start date:

1/10/2022

End date:

31/10/2022

Objectives:

Our project aimed on the one hand to inform young people about educational mobility opportunities and promote our Youth Centre as a Eurodesk point where young people can get useful information about their personal and professional development. On the other hand, it aimed at empowering young people to organise innovative informational campaigns involving practical youth-led campaigns. The project was part of the Time to Move 2022 Campaign, and on the 15th October 2022 we organised a non-formal info session in the Youth Centre of Karlovo. This was attended by 20 of our active youth volunteers and 10 newly attracted young people to whom we presented the information services we offer as a Eurodesk point, also acquainting them with the useful tools and resources of the network. The info session continued into an environmental awareness raising session acquainting the young people with our previous environmental projects and giving them a list of important eco-dates around which they could plan and implement future youth-led eco-initiatives.The empowered young people then organised a youth-led green eco-campaign for cleaning the biggest park in our town while informing more young people on the way as well as spreading the green project tote-bags encouraging their use instead of plastic ones.This was an innovative information on-the-go campaign combined with a green youth-led eco-campaign.

Why the project was: empowering young people, adapting to changing realities, or thinking out of the box:

The project directly empowered the involved young people as on the one hand it gave them useful information about educational mobility opportunities, the Eurodesk network and its benefits for young people. On the other hand, it raised their environmental awareness and trained them how to organise youth-led eco-campaigns combined with information and awareness raising elements.

How the project was inclusive:

We have promoted the project not only on local and national social media and networks but also during our big Erasmus+KA2 partnership project "Building the Young Environmental Saviors". We presented our TTM2022 green project during the international partnership meeting in Limassol, Cyprus (20-23 October 2022) around the Global Climate Change Week to 30 international participants from Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus, Serbia and Greece. We also promoted the project in the Akrotiri Educational Centre in Cyprus (https://sites.google.com/view/building-the-yes/partnership-meetings-and-study-visits) Moreover, we gave a big amount of visibility to Eurodesk and the TTM Campaign as we have put their logos on the project T-shirts and tote-bags. The people from our town who met the youth during their green walk and eco-initiative in the town's park, learned about Eurodesk and the Time to Move Campaign. They were asking the young people what they are doing, who is supporting them. In addition, the directly involved young people were giving away the green tote bags to other young people we met in the town's park thus informing them as well about Eurodesk and the Time to Move Campaign and raising their environmental awareness as well as encouraging them to use tote-bags rather than plastic ones.

Green aspect:

Our project was not only conceptually but literally "green". We had prepared green project T-shirts and tote bags with the project and Eurodesk logos, green gloves and green bags with which the young people collected the rubbish in the town's park giving an example of a youth-led green eco-campaign. We literally "painted the town green" https://www.facebook.com/mgirdrosevalley/posts/pfbid037y7G4VMBvByfom4v3xaCJngufzk8ZdogkmaJi2YP74RsVypCfWTZ7xnGKosgd86Tl

How the project has given a European dimension to your event and ensured the visibility and promotion of Eurodesk?

We have promoted the project not only on local and national social media and networks but also during our big Erasmus+KA2 partnership project "Building the Young Environmental Saviors". We presented our TTM2022 green project during the international partnership meeting in Limassol, Cyprus (20-23 October 2022) around the Global Climate Change Week to 30 international participants from Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus, Serbia and Greece. We also promoted the project in the Akrotiri Educational Centre in Cyprus (https://sites.google.com/view/building-the-yes/partnership-meetings-and-study-visits) Moreover, we gave a big amount of visibility to Eurodesk and the TTM Campaign as we have put their logos on the project T-shirts and tote-bags. The people from our town who met the youth during their green walk and eco-initiative in the town's park, learned about Eurodesk and the Time to Move Campaign. They were asking the young people what they are doing, who is supporting them. In addition, the directly involved young people were giving away the green tote bags to other young people we met in the town's park thus informing them as well about Eurodesk and the Time to Move Campaign and raising their environmental awareness as well as encouraging them to use tote-bags rather than plastic ones.

Impact:

The project had the following quantitative and qualitative results: 30 directly involved and empowered young people; one youth-led green eco-campaign organised by the empowered young people; over 5000 indirectly reached and positively influenced people from our posts on the social media; promoted the Youth Information Centre as a Eurodesk point; promoted the Eurodesk and Time to Move Campaign with the info session for the young people, the project T-shirts and tote-bags and the posts on social and local media; encouraged the young people to join future campaigns, educational mobility opportunities and continue to be active citizens in their communities; raised the environmental awareness of the directly and indirectly involved young people; the project had a positive impact both on the involved young people and the local community; the project included an innovative element combining information delivery with a direct youth-led campaign; the project tackled a serious global issue- the over-pollution with plastic rubbish. The young people contributed to fighting this problem with the clean-up campaign and the promotion of the use of tote-bags instead of plastic ones. Moreover, the project, Eurodesk and the Time to Move Campaign were promoted internationally during the Climate Change Week meeting in Cyprus.