Green Osijek – association for nature and environment protection successfully implemented Festival of sustainable development on 25th of October 2021 in Eco centre Zlatna Greda in Municipality of Bilje, Croatia
In a beautiful environment of Eco center Zlatna Greda festival gathered elementary school pupils and employees, representatives of CSO, local government, educational institution and representatives of business sectors.
The main goal was education of the youngest and strengthening the capacity and role of non-governmental organizations in the field of sustainable development. The festival was very successful as participants learned a lot about sustainable waste management in their local communities, sustainable use of natural resources, environmental protection, climate and energy all through interactive and interesting approach.
Sustainable community
The whole program started with an interactive workshop “Sustainable community” where pupils presented their own creative work, through which they showed what a sustainable community means to them, and presented a previous study on the interdependence of reduced electricity consumption, environmental protection and savings in their households.
Later they made new materials from existing old pieces of clothing, so that it was not discarded, but reused. After which, pupils and teachers participated in the workshop “Why is my planet changing?” where they had the opportunity to learn about the causes and adaptation to the already existing consequences of climate change and learned how to plant lavender seedlings and make eco decorations.
Time capsule and eco-quiz
All participants produced materials (such as drawings, photographs and letters) on sustainable future. Materials were afterwards stored in time capsule and buried in the Eco center Zlatna Greda as a message for future generations and in purpose of comparison how many of those expectations were actually realized in the future.
A particularly interesting activity for the pupils was an Eco-quiz where they demonstrated knowledge related to the separation and recycling of different categories of waste, renewable energy sources, sustainable use of natural resources, climate and energy.
While pupils learned the basics of surviving in nature through scout games and skills (setting up tents, throwing horseshoes, lighting fires with the help of sunlight) – representatives of other invited organizations joined the Eco-debate. Debate included the possibilities of establishing cooperation between educational institutions, non-governmental organizations and the local community, as well as the opportunities of development and implementation of joint educational programs in curricular and extracurricular activities.
SEENET as a regional and international growing network of CSOs shares a vision of promoting sustainable development as a one of core values. Through the small grants program SEENET proudly supported the realization of the Festival of sustainable development and work of network’s member Green Osijek.