Description
The project addresses the need to raise public awareness in the town of Velingrad about the importance of local natural heritage protection. The project aims at raising awareness through a series of interactive activities and games. First, school students from 2 local schools will take part in a competition to clear a tourist route in the mountain. Second, workshops will be held in the 2 schools to teach students how to recycle paper and cardboard at home. Third, the students will learn about the benefits of separate waste collection and composting organic waste and will take part in the creation of compost in the school yard. Finally, the students will take part in a competition for making artwork from waste materials. The project will benefit the students, teachers, parents and volunteers involved and the local community in general.
Summary of project results
Velingrad is a popular tourist destination famous for its wealth of specific natural resources but the local community underestimates the importance of sustainable development, it is not involved in environmental education and has no experience with initiatives related to environmental heritage protection. The long-term project goal was to help the local community with education of commitment to the protection of environmental resources and heritage. The project used practical training sessions and games to help contribute to the education of environmental habits in the adolescents and an environmentally-friendly model of behaviour. The interactive project activities helped the students involved in the project follow with interest the events; they actively took part in the voluntary campaigns, all practical sessions and the project competition. A number of initiatives on various environmental issues helped attract the attention of the parents who supported their children, at the last stage in particular. Thus a major step was made to engage the local community with environmental issues. The expected result was that great interest in the initiatives was attracted through the interactive format of games and the unconventional informal training. The students showed their willingness to get involved in other future similar events. One of the schools carried out follow-up environmental initiatives under the same motto, as the children wanted to continue with the project. More than 150 students were actively involved in all the activities. The training of teachers and the teaching materials obtained enabled independent reproduction of the project activities provided that there is good will for that from the school principals. The following project activities took place: 2 lean-up competitions and 2 cleaned tourist sites; 4 workshops for paper recycling and 1 teaching aid; 2 presentations on composting, 2 games for separate waste collection and 2 composters, 1 package of teaching aids; 1 competition for artifacts from waste.
Summary of bilateral results