PRAIS Foundation: LTC

www.lumeatacurata.ro

The national initiative “Your world? Clean!” is an educational program for promoting the selective gathering of recyclable waste and environment protection created and launched for a period of 5 years by PRAIS Foundation, in partnership with the Bucharest School Inspectorate, the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, the National Environmental Guard and the Mayoralty of District 1, with sponsorship from Lafarge Romania, Smithfield Romania and Romprest.

“Your World? Clean!” offers the pupils, teachers and families the online communication platform www.lumeatacurata.ro – a modern extracurricular informational tool, plus the book created by the Foundation’s specialists and distributed for free to the children. The particularity of the program consists in the large number of activities involving the pupils: open lessons in schools, daily waste selective gathering, compositions contest, competition of objects made of recyclable waste.

Presentation of the social cause:

With the joining to the European Union, Romania has assumed its alignment to the European regulations regarding selective waste collection and recycling. At present, Romania is at the awareness raising stage regarding the importance of waste selective collection and recycling. Until 2017, the expansion of selective collection should be achieved nationwide. At the national level, the percentage of selective collection of municipal waste is very low, being mainly achieved within pilot projects initiated by the sanitation companies and mayoralties. Because of that, the recyclable elements of household waste (paper, bottles, plastic, metals) are not recovered, but eliminated by final storage together with other municipal waste.

"Educating the young generation is a priority!"

Programme objective:

“Your world? Clean!” initiative aims particularly at educating pupils in primary school to develop a civic and responsible environmental behaviour, by saving the planet’s resources, caring for the nature and selectively collecting recyclable waste. The campaign also addresses teachers, parents and the large public by emphasising their role in educating children in the spirit of environmental protection.

Project development:

School award ceremony

Open lessons

Mayor Chiliman giving prizes

Children artifacts

Lesson learned

Summed, until June 2010 “Your World? Clean!” has involved more than 5,200 pupils in 92 schools from Bucharest, Medgidia, Arad, Timisoara. The programme contains modern learning methodologies: open lessons animated with multimedia presentations; the pupils are stimulated to collect daily in school, produce objects from recyclable materials, write compositions on environmental topics which are automatically posted on www.lumeatacurata.ro and awarded monthly by the Foundation.

“Your World? Clean!” started in March 2009, when 2,200 fourth grade pupils from 34 schools of District 3, Bucharest and 100 pupils from the General School of Maşloc commune, Timişoara County, 30 pupils from the General School of Vânători village, Mişca commune, Arad County received the book “Your World? Clean!” free-of-charge. Each school was provided with bins for the selective collection of paper and plastic by Rosal, sponsor of the first project edition. The volunteers of PRAIS Foundation have organised 8 open lessons, while the children wrote 57 compositions on environmental protection topics and produced objects from recyclable materials. A waste collection day was organised when the pupils, together with the parents, have brought paper and plastic waste to the school to be selectively collected.

In October 2009, a second edition of the programme was launched for more than 2,100 fourth grade pupils from 38 schools in District 1, as well as for 800 pupils from 16 schools in Timişoara, Arad and Constanţa counties. All the pupils have received the book „Your World? Clean!” free-of-charge, stickers and informative posters for more than 6,000 parents and relatives of the children. Every school was provided by Romprest (partner for District 1) with bins for the selective collection of paper and plastic, the quantities gathered being quantified on a monthly basis. Based on the results, on www.lumeatacurata.ro, a top was produced including the most active schools in the district.

During the school year, PRAIS Foundation, together with Romprest, have organised 38 lessons. The pupils have created more than 600 objects from recyclable materials which entered the competition, while the winners at school level were awarded in June 2010 during a big ceremony. Furthermore, the pupils have written 170 compositions on environmental topics, posted on the programme website.

Programme promotion

On June 1st, 2009, the International Children’s Day, PRAIS Foundation organised an exhibition with the objects produced from recyclable materials, including 96 winning works at the level of each school of District 3. On this occasion, awards were given for the schools which collected most wastes and the pupils who won the object production competition at the district level. A press release was issued to announce the results of the first programme edition, which generated 16 press materials.

For the promotion of the second edition of the programme and of the activities organised, 3 media campaigns were organised:

October 19th, 2009 – media campaign announcing the launch of the second edition of “Your World? Clean!” - 10 articles published.
December 10th, 2009 – media campaign promoting the participation of HE Mr. Robin Barnett, Ambassador of Great Britain in Bucharest, in the second open lesson - 12 articles published.
June 8th, 2010 – announcing the annual results of the national initiative Your World? Clean! – 14 articles published
Furthermore, 23 articles were published about the actions within “Your World? Clean!” developed locally by Smithfield Romania, national partner of the programme.

Project results:

A modern, interactive website was created -www.lumeatacurata.ro -communication platform of the program, which includes the book, documentaries on selective waste gathering, photos, compositions and results of competitions, chapter of civic education, tips for saving energy and other resources for pupils.

Participation and active involvement of schools:

92 schools from Bucharest, Medgidia, Arad, Timişoara involved;
Over 5,200 pupils involved;
605,32 cubic meters of paper and 216,57 cubic meters of plastic collected in schools;
Over 1,100 objects achieved from recyclable materials by the pupils;
Over 225 compositions registered on www.lumeatacurata.ro ;
230 teachers involved;
Over 200 objects exhibited at the exhibitions organised during the annual award ceremonies
46 open lessons in schools