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Sustainability Quest
Sustainability Quest
Start date: Aug 1, 2016,
End date: Jan 31, 2017
PROJECT
FINISHED
The “Sustainability Quest” is a short-term EVS project planned for a period of 8 weeks from September 26th to November 23rd 2016 in Zagreb, Croatia. The project will bring together 11 volunteers from 6 countries (Portugal, Italy, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Russia and Armenia) to be engaged in O.A.ZA., working in specific tasks regarding sustainable development within local community, aiming at young people. The main focus of the voluntary service will be the organization of two events: (1) “Sustainability Challenge” which is a 1-month long challenge aimed at actively encouraging sustainable lifestyles among local youth and (2) “Days of Sustainable Development for Youth” (DORM) which is a 3-day event organized in the local community targeted at young people, teachers, decision makers and NGO workers. This project seeks to address the issue of sustainable development, by dealing with different aspects of this topic, such as environmental protection, sustainability, social responsible entrepreneurship and personal development. Specific objectives of the project are:- raising awareness of the theme of sustainable development and environmental protection;- reaching young people interested in altering their behavior towards the environment into a more sustainable conduct;- teaching young people how to implement sustainable practices in their lives;- promoting a healthy diet and physical activity;- promoting environmental awareness and sustainable practices in the local community;- encouraging youth to challenge themselves to behave more sustainably, by helping them setting personal goalsThe following activities are planned to realize those objectives:(1) Research information; (2) Create the challenge concept; (3) Promote the challenge and recruitment of participants; (4) Launch the beginning of the challenge; (5) Give support to participants; (6) Host an award ceremony; (7) Write a program of the DORM event; (8) Promotion of DORM event; (9) Host the DORM event and coordinate the program; (10) Present personal projects; (11) On-Arrival Training; (12) Introduction to sustainable development; (13) Promotion and marketing trainingAll methodologies used will promote active participation, learning by doing, non-formal and informal education. The main methods will be: experiential, cooperative and participatory learning; transfer of expert experience; peer learning; brainstorming; buzz groups; team work; team building and energizers; presentations; evaluations; group and individual work.Some of the participants we are choosing already have education and experience in the fields connected to this project. However, the main requirement for the participants we are selecting is a high interest in the topic of sustainability and the willingness to actively contribute to the project which means we are also selecting some participants with fewer or no background knowledge in the field of the project activities if they are eager to advance in these fields. In this way, we secure a diverse group of participants with different levels of background knowledge but an equal amount of motivation, so they will support and learn from each other.Through participation in this voluntary service, by working with young people, taking part in promotional activities and trainings and developing a personal project, participants will acquire and improve the following competences:- gain basic skills in working with young people,- increase their knowledge regarding the theme of sustainable development and environmental protection,- increase understanding of the importance of sustainable environmental practices,- adopt healthy diet and increase the understanding of its importance,- learn how to organize and host events,- learn how to promote events and the importance of visibility,- strengthen their creativity and critical thinking,- increase their independence and ability to take care of themselves,- strengthen abilities needed for living in a community,- increase self-empowerment and self-esteem,- become more outgoing and increase presentation and communication skills,- increase the understanding of importance of active participation in society,- learn how to work together and execute tasks as a team,- learn basic non-violent/transformation communication skills and learn how to handle differences (on mentor meetings),- gain a greater understanding and responsiveness to social, linguistic and cultural diversity,- improve their foreign language competences,- improve cultural competences and sensitivity through intercultural exchange.Long term benefits of the project will be reflected in the increase of environmental awareness and the rise in the application of sustainable development practices among youth. The project will encourage volunteers and local youth to take part in other mobility projects, increasing their level of intercultural understanding, European awareness and cosmopolitan