Website: https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/projects/search/details/2022-3-EL02-KA152-YOU-000098337
Start date 13-02-2023
End date 12-02-2024
Budget: 18.210,80 €
Coordinator: TsaMpa
Partner: ICSE & CO (IT) , Artistic and Social Revolution Association (RO) , Asociacija “Tvarumo namai” (LT) , Creative Youth (MT)
Objectives
Green Litter, was designed by the participants for them in order to meet their specific needs of environmental education after school mandatory education. Our idea of the GLitter was the fate of the planet is in youths’ hands, so it is crucial for the youngsters to learn how to use resources wisely and do their bit in the battle against climate change. The results are a better, more sustainable, and inhabitable world. Environmental education is a lifelong process because it is a multi-disciplinary field integrating disciplines such as biology, chemistry, physics, ecology, earth science, atmospheric science, mathematics and geography. We tackled this issue by creating and disseminating experience with detailed information about how to get into life-changing non-formal educational activities regarding environmental protection, recycling principles, reusable objects, and the adoption of eco-friendly lifestyle habits with youngsters who were experienced and who didn’t have the possibility to otherwise get access to, either by fewer opportunities backgrounds, social or geographical problems, etc. All the partners together accomplished to tackle in order to change the range of environmental pollution as well as to decline the eco-footprint and the amount of waste globally. All the partners of this YE were experienced with non-formal activities, ICTS, and arts in education, Erasmus+ projects and they supported the empowerment of environmental education.
Implementation
With a strong focus on non-formal learning and cooperation between European countries and partner organizations in the youth sector, we encouraged participants to share and learn from each other. GLitter had a variety of non-formal activities such as workshops, debate sessions, treasure hunts, open dialogues, volunteer cleaning, reflection assessment, creating of the blog, team building games, and small local awareness events regarding the importance of environmental education and the adaptation of an eco-lifestyle. All these aspects were examined with the contribution of arts and through the perspective of reuse and recycling. Our main objectives were: – To actively promote environmental education and eco- friendly lifestyle habits, promoting diversity, intercultural dialogue, and common values of freedom while inspiring positive impacts on environmental protection and well-being. – To make the participants familiar with the rules of recycling, perform calculations on energy use, water consumption, waste output, the expertise terminology, and the methods and the techniques of environmental protection. – To develop a firm ecological mindset and use it to overcome today’s environmental challenges with a proactive attitude and a strong commitment. – Spread awareness regarding the importance of the appropriate environmental education and the necessity of environmental protection in order to enforce them to take action and inciting active civic participation. -To be more active youths. These selected 30 youngsters from 5 different European countries were chosen during the planning phase, from a list of candidates and preferably those who don’t have many opportunities to experience other cultures outside the borders of their countries and they were facing with economic, geographical, and social obstacles as well as they had educational and cultural differences, to actively contribute to filling European mobility and cultural gaps to foster independence, wellbeing, and environmental education.
The selected participants were:·Strongly motivated to get more involved in non-formal environmental & educational activities; ·With no or low previous exchange experience; ·Some participants came from a fewer opportunities background; ·Age range was 18-30 years old for participants, 18-25 years old were 17 participants, 26-30 years old were 8 participants; ·5 group leaders were over 30 years old and adequately experienced.
Facebook and Whatsapp groups were created, first the team leaders, then the participants, where we published every information about the project and the members had the possibility to express themselves, before, during and after the project, and shared every related topic relevant to the project. All the leaders were informed additionally, via Skype meetings, about the plan, the logistics, safety measures, and details of the activities, involving everyone in the preparation of them. Through non-formal education, with special attention to youths from a fewer opportunities background who had less access to information and were experiencing a challenging transition into balanced adult life in the community, this project brought everyone together, regardless of age, gender, or social origin, promoting dialogue, open discussion, debates and knowledge sharing, and creating an environment where they developed solutions and learn from each other. The proposed activities boosted the sense of teamwork, cooperation, and communication among them as they needed to work together to achieve the proposed objectives. This raised their ability to communicate and their public-speaking skills, preparing them for future situations making them more comfortable in front of others. Reflection-group sessions supported the collective and individual reflection on the skills developed during the YE, enabling the formal recognition of these competencies through instruments like the Youthpass.
Results
By creating these outcomes’ blog (glittertsampa.blogspot.com), we amplified the results to reach even more young people from fewer opportunities backgrounds and marginalized areas, and other vulnerable groups. Therefore, the expected impact on them was exponential to that expected on the YE participants. At the end of the youth exchange, the participants had enough knowledge to develop and implement non-formal activities using arts and technology in their local communities and spread this knowledge among others in order to fight the environmental impact from the excessive waste, pollution, litter, and compulsive shopping. We produced a learning outcomes’ blog with all activities and all learning outcomes of the project, and we shared it through the internet pages, partners, and local associations to make sure that everyone got access to this information. The involved partners kept on collaborating and contributing to new Erasmus+/international projects through enlarged networks and cooperation endeavors to allow young people from local communities to experience and benefit from similar activities.
