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Description
The environmental groups taking part in the project have gradually turned over the years into self-sufficient environmental communities training volunteers. However, their work is still organized in a haphazard way. Second, environmental protection activities have always been organized as short-term activities, not encompassing natural processes in their overall duration. The environmental communities partnering in the project live in nature and take care of certain areas of it, applying recreative and conservative agriculture, and they have shown how environmental protection can translate into systematic, regular activities to counter climate change in reality. Third, environmental activism groups and communities still do not interact sufficiently among themselves and with local communities and authorities and do not participate actively in the development and implementation of environment and education policies in Bulgaria. The project will also focus on this shortcoming in the education of new waves of environmental activists as well. In the short-term, the project will train 100 young activists in 4 educational environmental communities, promote their activity and support their interaction with local communities and authorities. In the long term, a new sustainable education system will be created, offering a model for efficient and sustainable training of young people willing to develop environmental protection activities. The project partners will exchange good practices, skills and trainers as well as carry out joint activities such as the development of a curriculum for environmental training and guides for trainers and trainees. The partners will transfer their experience to other similar structures in Bulgaria and the EU through their communication materials and project activities and will propose the introduction of their model to the Ministry of Education and Science.
Summary of project results
The project was aimed at the lack of a natural learning environment and established technology for spreading practical knowledge and skills for the protection and restoration of the environment in Bulgaria, which would cover the natural processes in their entirety. Eco-activist groups and communities still do not sufficiently interact with each other and with local communities and authorities. Therefore, they do not actively participate in the development and implementation of eco and educational policies in Bulgaria.
Through their life in nature and their interaction with it, the eco-communities partnering in the project show how caring for nature can and should be transformed into systemic, sustainable activities in order to actually counteract climate change. An innovative and sustainable model for training eco-activists in educational eco-communities was developed, as well as two manuals - "Handbook for eco-activists and eco-optimists in the wonderful country of Bulgaria" and "Handbook for trainers of eco-activists-eco-optimists". Trainers were prepared and 10 seven-day trainings were held with a total of 100 young participants, with 25 young people per location - in the village of Zhelen, Svoge municipality and the village of Malomirovo, Elhovo municipality, the village of Bunovo, Kyustendil municipality and the village of Smolichano, municipality Bride.
The training model was presented to the local authorities in four municipalities and it was also sent to the Ministry of Education and Culture to be included in the civic education classes. Norwegian artist Jonas Landstad held a workshop for making sculptures out of waste forest materials that communicated environmental messages and "decorated" the "Earth Speaks to You" concert held in Kyustendil to activate the local community. A film about eco-communities was also produced - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP86hdSqAqA
100 new young eco-activists were trained in nature camps - mostly NEETS, including 20 representatives of the Roma community. 4 sustainable eco-communities have become educational structures that will multiply the effect of the developed technology for practical training of active citizens in the field of ecology. The created training materials were popularized among 60 NGOs, 50 cultural centers, 1000 young people and part of the population of 4 municipalities and the Ministry of Education and Culture.
The three partners of the project had a key role in the development of the training methodology and the implementation of the camps in different locations - the village of Zhelen, the village of Malomirovo, the community of Bunovo and the village of Smolichano.