What we do, what means of transport we use, how much trash we produce, how we handle it, how much water and food we waste… All of these aspects are something on what we do not focus in our daily life but the fact is that everyone leaves the ecological footprint and influences nature. There are ways how to reduce it, we just need to realize it and behave correctly. First step in the process is to start with ourselves, another one is to spread it to others.Sustainable living, waste management, recycling or upcycling are terms we should be familiar with. It is a known fact that during the recycling of plastic waste, it is used about 88% less energy than the production of new plastic, so valuable resources are saved by recycling. However, it is recycled only about a third material which is suitable for such a treatment. According to Eurostat, the Czech Republic belongs to countries with the highest recycling rates for packaging waste in European Union while for example Romania is in totally opposite situation. By our project we would like to contribute to decrease the difference among European countries by exchanging good practices and implementing them in other countries. Therefore, the aim of our project is to “Encourage young people to get more involved in the protecting environment of their community”In order to achieve our aim, we set the following objectives:- to exchange information/knowledge about ways to protect the environment- to raise awareness among young people about the importance of sustainable living- to create an informative campaign that each participant country will develop and implement in their community- to foster sense of initiative of youngsters- to promote Erasmus+ ProgrammeA youth exchange “Helping the Environment, Helping Yourself” will take place in September 2016 in small village Mladoňov, the Czech Republic. The target group of participants consists of young people with some experience in environment protection activities or at least with interest in this topic and willingness to begin with such activities. There will be participants from 7 following countries: the Czech Republic, Romania, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Ukraine and Azerbaijan. From each country 4 participants belonging in age category between 18 and 30 years and 1 group leader without upper age limit. We will use methods of non-formal education such as workshops, brainstorming, facilitated discussions, team building activities, presentations, plays, visits and excursions. Participants will share their experience and ideas within the group and in mixed team they will work on campaign preparation. We will start with introduction of staff, rules, name games, expectations, we will continue through ice breaking and team building activities to group workshops with aim to create campaign which will be later applied in partner countries. Firstly it will be shared in Czech community, in particular during event in high school in Šumperk where Erasmus+ and our campaign will be presented to young students. We want to be close to local community so our other activity will be cleaning of village together with children from local primary school. Our participants will have opportunity to speak with municipality representative, see how sorting line and whole collecting yard operates and they will visit also unique hand made paper factory in spa town Velké Losiny. All activities are described in part G and attached file in more details.Our participants are determined to acquire knowledge in the project and share it to others. 9 sessions of 90 minutes of our timetable will be dedicated to brainstorm about campaign, to create, mid-evaluate, edit content and finally present it. Result of all workshops should be creative and innovative material and we believe we will have enough time to produce it in very good level of quality and big chance to be implemented in all partner countries. The main impact for participating organisation is in bringing new materials they can use to improve for environmental activities. Individual participants will gain complex of knowledge, soft skills and attitudes that can greatly improve their future career perspectives. Thanks to our disseminating activities there will be doors of non-formal education and Erasmus+ Programme open to more youngsters. In the end of the project we expect higher awareness about importance of behaving sustainable and dozens/hundreds of youngsters who will really change their behaviour at least a little bit. In the long term this project can help people to realize importance of sustainable living and keeping it constantly in order to reduce amount of trash, to raise quality of air or water etc. because the fact is that Helping the Environment means Helping Yourself.