What is our project about? 

Sustainable Solutions For a Greener Future is a Strategic Partnerships in Youth Field project funded by the European Union under the scope of KA205  Erasmus+ Programme. It was developed by 3 different organisations from the United Kingdom, Turkey and Spain. 

Project Partners: Youth Innovation (London,UK), Artis NGO ( Fethiye,Turkey), ACD La Hoya (Elche, Spain) 
 

With this project we wanted to reach the youth by promoting active learning, introducing various methods of non-formal education and emphasise the importance of reducing pollution and food waste, which is in line with European policies on climate change, mentioned in Sustainable Development Goals. We have seen that there is a need to encourage youth workers and young people to take initiative and awareness - raising about environmental and climate - change challenges.

 

Our Aim 

• Imparting awareness and a sense of environmental stewardship among the youth of today and future generations (by engaging, supporting and empowering youth to take sustainable environmental actions and promote them) through Strategic Partnership and sharing good practices. 
• To increase the capacity of NGOs to take action regarding reducing plastic waste in the partner countries by encouraging local communities to recycle and reuse. 
•  To equip youth workers with new sustainable environmental skills in order to empower more young people.

Our Target Group

The primarily target groups are young people, youth leaders, youth workers, NGO workers and their organisations. With the help of our participants and project partners, we would like to involve more young people and youth organisations in plastic pollution awareness activities. 

 

WHO WE ARE

YOUTH INNOVATION LTD

Youth Innovation (Y&I)  is the Coordinator NGO of Sustainable Solutions For a Greener Future Project, based in London, UK. We are active in youth work, organising local and international events including  young people to take active roles in our societies. We seek collective solutions for issues they are facing. 

We work not only with young people but also with people from different age groups too. We organise different activities to help our societies at local and international level. Our aims and objectives are; Building up the capacity of non governmental organisations at national and international level. Our organisation promotes active citizenship, supports professional and personal development of young people. We have been empowering and inspiring young people at local, national and international level.

ACD LA HOYA

ACD La Hoya is Spanish Cultural and Sport association based on the principles of cooperation, integration, environment protection, solidarity, humanity and universal human values and promotes an environment in which the community will be able to create, think, realise their ideas and build positions and reactions on important issues. Develop activities in the rural community as art, sport and culture, also dedicated to the successful implementation and participation of European projects to bring the youth and senior Europe closer. Our strong cooperation with the high schools, schools, municipality of Elche and the University give us the opportunity to join and develop different activities, workshops and symposiums, related to the development of the rural area and the environment.

ARTIS NGO

ARTIS Youth Culture Art Training Association is an independent, democratic, non-political and youth-oriented social initiative which was established in 2017. Since it is established by art educators, youth workers and young artists which are highly experienced and active in the field for many years, it has a large potential of followers throughout fine arts academies, visual art education faculties and art communities as well as youth field in Turkey. Artis aims youth to take active roles in the society as it voluntarily organises social, cultural and artistic activities at local, national and international levels led by youth workers, youth leaders, volunteers, students, trainers, academic staff and project experts who are active in youth, art, training and project management fields. Each member of Artis has been involved in non-profit organisations for several years and been involved in social projects which gives us a common commitment to finding sustainable solutions for social development and youth empowerment. 
 

SHORT TERM STAFF TRAINING

Our staff training took place in Fethiye between 21st-26th April 2022. We hosted 25 people from 3 different countries; The United Kingdom, Turkey and Spain. Down below you can see some of the tools like ecological footprint calculation, eco bingo, good practice sharing and methodologies like 5R method, social media campaign, recycling centre study visit that we applied during the implementation.

ECO BINGO 

Such a green way of playing Bingo but this time with a little difference. We have printed out some sentences explaining a green way of living such as ; “I use bamboo toothbrush” or “I shop from second hand shops” then we gave each of the participants these papers. They mingled around and asked each other if the statements applied to them. It was a nice way to make them connect through encouraging each other to lead an eco-friendly lifestyle. There were even some moments when participants didn’t really know some terms like “harvesting water” or “upcycling” . In this case, we left the stage for any of them who knows to explain what they mean. 

This is a really nice activity for stepping into the topic as well as connecting the participants to each other. 

Realities in the Countries:

Participants from Spain, Turkey and the UK gathered and worked in groups to share the environmental issues & good practices according to PEST (political, economic, social and technological) analysis in their countries. We asked them some leading questions such as; 

• What are the main environmental problems in your community / town/ country especially regarding plastic pollution/ waste management in terms of political, economic, social and technological aspects? 
• What is being done? Are there some government policies and similar solutions?

This session was very useful in terms of stepping into our environmental project and developing participants’ soft skills and analysing the problems. They also had a chance to learn about the other countries’. Each group had 10 minutes for presenting and 5 minutes for answering the questions from the participants.

5R Model | Water Footprint Calculation

How important is waste management in our daily lives? Should we apply recycling as a first option? Within our project, we displayed the 5R technique that we can use in our daily life in a very effective way. The stages start with refusing which means that everything starts with saying “ no '' to what we don’t really need. So we need to question our needs first. Then “reducing” follows in which we are looking for alternative ways to reduce our plastic etc. use. As a 3rd stage “repurposing” we think of ways to reuse our plastic,metal etc. items all over and over again and we can even upcycle them into something new! As a 4th stage; we are taking the item to recycling bins with the right sorting method. The last stage “rot” is all about composting styles! Even if we live in an apartment we can actually go for “composting” without little visitors such as flies. We have given some information on Bokashi compost type as well.

As well as touching upon this effective waste management method, we also talked about our carbon and water footprint, which was highly surprising for our participants since we don’t really pay attention to how much footprint we might cause on our planet. 
 

MY ECO FOOTPRINT

In this session, we have randomly distributed some papers with some written actions such as “taking 5-min shower with warm water” or “production of a 1kg tomatoes” to our participants. Afterwards, everybody started mingling around and asking each other about the statement they have. The point was to discuss which statement would cause more carbon footprint. Each person had a one chance to swap the paper with another individual if they thought the other action causes more carbon footprint. 

In the end, we read the statements one by one according to the amount of carbon footprint they cause and make a line accordingly. 

This activity was very useful and interesting in terms of perceiving which daily actions can cause what amount of carbon footprint. 

 

Good Practice Sharing: 

• A session about Fast Fashion with Emily:

With Emily, we have discussed what kind of harm that fast fashion brings to our planet and how we can actually avoid shopping from such brands. Emily talked about her personal experiences such as going for second hand shops, thrift stores and applying upcycling to her old clothes.

 

-A session with Antony and Gabriel on Hydroponics

Gabriel and Anthony talked about the hydroponics system which they built in their homes and explained to us how the system works. Hydroponics is a method of growing plants without soil. You can grow hydroponically all year long. Hydroponics uses less water than traditional soil-based systems. Hydroponic growing allows for faster growth and higher yields than traditional soil-based growing systems.
 

Social Media Campaign & Beach Clean Up

 

With the support of Fethiye Municipality, We went to Çalış Beach as a part of our Study visit. We observed what kind of waste was thrown away to the beach. In groups we collected the waste items and handed them over to the municipality. It was a great act of awareness for the local people as well. During the clean-up we have come across locals having a picnic. We have received pretty good reactions from them. We also worked in groups to lead a social media campaign by sharing some photos with the hashtags to improve our visibility. 
 

Recycling Centre Study Visit

With the support of Fethiye Municipality, we had a chance to show our young people the recycling process happening in the recycling center of Fethiye. Our participants had a chance to observe and get in touch with people working in this center and ask them the questions in their head. Mr Özgür Çağrıtekin kindly agreed to make some time to explain to us how the recycling process is being done at the recycling centre of Fethiye. We were able to visit different sections, what kind of items can be recycled and how the recycling works of the municipalities are in action in different countries.
 

 

Local Activities

As an important part of our project, we also organised some local activities like aromatherapy sessions, environmental cleaning and recycling events, and seminars. Each partner took responsibility to run such activities within their local environments. In total 650+ people attended across project partners, our project went beyond European union's borders and with our online eco talk we met with 116 Indian students and academic staff from Govt.V.Y.T.PG.Autonomous College, Durg, C.G. India.  
 

Environmental Cleaning Activities

In order to take the first step to jump into a sustainable and greener life, we should start taking action in our own lives and influence others around us. That’s why we decided to arrange some local environmental cleaning activities. We mostly preferred going to the woods, some places in nature. We also paid attention to choosing spots where people are also present so that we can influence them by this beautiful action.

Some moments from the environmental cleaning actions; 

Here are more examples of beach cleaning events; We are tackling topics such as recycling, upcycling and ways of living an eco-friendly life style. The young people joining the events have a chance to develop their networking and team working skills. They also learn to say no to single use plastics, they come up with new ideas on upcycling, have a space to remember the beauty of nature and discuss how it should be preserved, detect which items are thrown away most. Which possible dangers they bring to the environment. 

 

Here are some moments from the beach cleaning activity organised by Artis NGO in July 2022 on Ölüdeniz Beach, which is an area visited by both locals and tourists. As well as cleaning the environment, we had a chance to promote our project’s visibility and the results of our actions on nature. 

Reforestation Event

Reforestation is essential in terms of preventing climate change and ensuring our very existence because forests act as carbon sinks. Without them, the planet's average temperature and sea levels will both continue to rise. Other climate effects include the continued melting of glaciers and polar ice caps. That is why it is also crucial to inform our younger generations about the importance of our forests and encourage them to be more sensitive individuals especially when it comes to nature. We were highly proud that we were able to include so many young people for spreading seeds and caring for our planet.

Recycling Workshops

Here are some moments from a recycling workshop done on International Day of Environment. The aim was to bring the youth together to disseminate our project as well as taking an attention on an eco-friendly lifestyle by emphasising the importance of zero waste.

Aromatherapy Workshops

We gathered young people in our local area to raise awareness for a greener lifestyle by using natural ingredients in our everyday lives as well. We can benefit from nature itself by respecting it and our body at the same time. For a more eco-friendly and “free from harmful chemicals” lifestyle we should be using natural ingredients. We should remember that nature has a lot to offer us. Why not use them in a friendly way?

In our aromatherapy workshops we exchanged ideas on what kind of essential and fixed oils we can use for our routine care and how we can support upcycling by using empty bottles and jars in our houses.

Some moments from our aromatherapy workshops;

What kind of recipes did we have?

From nature to our table! We tried some recipes like; 

• Sunscreen
• Lip Balm 
• Face Serum
• Homemade candle
• Mosquito Repellent Spray

We tried to follow cruelty free & vegan recipes as well. We had beeswax but it was optional to use. Our participants had a chance to exchange their experience of aromatherapy as well. 

Thanks to the fixed and essential oils like lavender oil, coconut oil, jojoba oil, they could explore the power of nature. 

Promotion &  Dissemination Activities 

In some meetings about Erasmus+ project, Our partners also mentioned Sustainable Solutions for a Greener Future, our aims and what we have done so far and reached more people within their communities.

Down below, a photo from the dissemination activity in La Hoya, explaining the local community our project.

Another dissemination talk of the project at the University CEU Cardenal Herrera where young people who are studying social graduate attended. 

With the support of the stakeholder University CEU, a seminar was held at the University CEU Cardenal Herrera where the young people who are studying environmental graduate had a chance to get familiar with our project. They got to know more about Erasmus+ projects and activities leading to a more eco-friendly lifestyle.

For us, it is always crucial to introduce our projects in any related events to attract more attention. In this way the number of people whom we inform is rapidly growing and we are paving our way towards more conscious generations in terms of leading an eco-friendly lifestyle. 

Hello Tomorrow Turkey COP26 Climate Change Awareness and Technology Solutions Closing Event took place online in April 2021. Nilgun Pala, director of Youth Innovation and our UK project manager was invited as an Inspirational Humans in which projects that carried examples of citizen engagement against climate change were introduced. 

Nilgün Pala who is a project manager and environmental activist talked about good practices and promoted Sustainable Solutions for a Greener Future project. 

We also created Sustainable Solutions for a Greener Future newsletters which you can see on our website. With these, we reached 700 people by sharing good practices and project activities with our eco readers. 

Our project also has its own social media accounts, we have 460 organic followers, and 240 in Instagram. We have been very actively using the power of our social media accounts including 17000 total followers of our project partners. We reached thousands of people from project countries and beyond. 

 

We would like to thank and send our gratitude to the British Council and  European Commission for supporting and funding our project under Erasmus+ KA205. We also would like to thank our consortium members, management teams, IT team, creative team, social media team, stakeholders, volunteers, youth workers, and young people to become part of our project family and working tirelessly to look for Sustainable Solutions for a Greener Future to create a better world. 

We look forward to our future collaborations. 


Author of the blog: Sinem Kanmaz

Sustainable Solutions for a Greener Future , 2019-2-UK01-KA205-062364, ERASMUS+ KA205 PROJECT

Disclaimer: This project is funded with the support of the European Commission. The information and views set out in this document are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Commission, British Council. Neither the European Union institutions nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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