The 2nd edition of the Caravan for Creative Recycling, a national project dedicated to secondary education teachers and their students, is being carried out in 8 counties (Arad, Bihor, Bistrița Năsăud, Cluj , Maramureș, Satu Mare, Sălaj and Timiş), during January and July 2024.
Compared to the 2023 edition, this year the number of counties, participants, awards and results has doubled!
The project is organized by the PlaYouth Association in partnership with OSCAR Downstream, the largest independent fuel distributor in Romania, and its main purpose is to encourage the creative recycling of waste (upcycling), to support direct and indirect participants (students, teachers, families, communities) to understand the environmental impact of consumerism, and to improve their behavior for a more sustainable future.
"A country’s education system is a mirror to that country, and we, Romanians, have to work harder so that this mirror reflects what we desire. I believe that the business environment has the responsibility to get involved in education, and OSCAR Downstream cannot stand indifferent to the lives of people that grow and build with us. We support the educational and creative values of this project, and we wish good luck to participants joining the Caravan for Creative Recycling: children, teachers, families, and communities," said Nicolae Bănică, CEO of OSCAR Downstream.
The project – which was a good resource for the Green Week, during the first edition in 2023, has been carried out in 87 school units in the counties of Călărași (February 18, 2023), Giurgiu (February 25, 2023), Brașov (March 4, 2023), and Sibiu (March 11, 2023), with the participation of 435 teachers (87 teams of 5 teachers each), and over 11,000 secondary education students directly involved.
The current 2024 edition has attracted over 1,050 eligible teachers from 210 school units, and around 20-25 teams from each county that the Caravan visits (Sălaj, Bistrița Năsăud, Arad, Timiș, Satu Mare, Maramureș, Cluj, and Bihor).
Each group of participants gets specific benefits from the project, which put together, create a complete mechanism that can have a domino effect, thus generating behavioral changes in targeted communities.
Just by taking into account the number of teachers and students from schools that the Caravan for Creative Recycling visited in 2023, the project has reached approximately 36,000 indirect beneficiaries. By comparison, the impact this year is estimated at 75,000 indirect beneficiaries (25,000 students, 45,000 parents, and 5,000 teachers from participant schools).
Play, art and joy help participants:
- Learn about sustainability, rational consumption and selective recycling.
- Discover the benefits to the environment and the ecosystem, and how we can save money by turning our achieved know how into a hobby.
- Stimulate creativity, teamwork, initiative, and the joy of creating useful, Do-it-Yourself objects.
Just like at the previous edition, eligible teachers were invited to attend working meetings during which they were provided with all the necessary information to create the 5 green zones ("Selective Recycling", "Happy Birds", "Wonderful Garden", "Inspiring Readings", and "Recycled and sent-back-into-the-world”). These meetings also included working sessions to help teachers design the implementation plans for the above-mentioned areas.
In each city, we enjoyed large audiences at the in-person meetings organized during weekends (two per week). The first stop of the Caravan for Creative Recycling was in Sălaj county, on February 10. The Caravan then went on to Bistrița Năsăud (February 11), Arad (February 17), Timiș (February 18), Satu Mare (February 24), Maramureș (February 25), Cluj (March 2), and Bihor (March 3).
As we have closed collaboration agreements with school inspectorates in all counties, they were also present and provided support with the project’s organization and implementation.
All the Caravan for Creative Recycling meetings were a real success and we are grateful to all participating teachers for showing up in large numbers and contributing with useful, creative and easy-to-apply ideas to this recycling project, as well as all to our hosts and the people that were opened to work with us and provided support.
At the same time, the project has selected coordinating teachers in the first edition-targeted counties, so as to be carried out this year as well. The project’s objective is to reach national coverage in 6 years.
