Don’t throw your waste away – make ART not pollution Erasmus Project

Project Title

Don’t throw your waste away – make ART not pollution

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; Creativity and culture; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

Project “Don’t throw your waste away – make ART not pollution” aims to raise awareness of waste management issues among students, parents and members of the local community. The project was created as a reaction to our students’ dissatisfaction with pollution of natural localities around the city in which they live. The project also resulted from the success of smaller one-off events focused on environmental problems, which were evaluated very positively by students and teachers, and by the motivation of teachers to unite and pool these individual activities into a comprehensive, longer-term project. With our project we want to provide students with practical education in the field of environmental education focused primarily on waste management, recycling and upcycling. The aim of the project is not only to present the issue, but to change the thinking of the individual through practical experience in waste collection, recycling and upcycling. Another aim of the project is to compare waste policies at the location of the participating schools, which is in Přelouč and the areas of Ankara. We want Czech and Turkish students to be inspired by each other to increase their civic engagement in protecting the locality they live in and to motivate their family and the wider community to do so.
The project participants are mainly students aged 12-19 years, who actively approach to environmental protection and are interested in environmental protection in their free time. We also expect the involvement of students who have not been active in the area of ​​environmental problems, but who will be inspired by their more active classmates during the project. Within the school, the participants are teachers who have been involved in environmental issues and have experience in organizing smaller one-off events aimed at protecting the environment. Last but not least, the project also includes volunteers from the ranks of non-teaching staff, parents and residents of the cities. For local activities we expect twenty to thirty students to be involved, twelve students and three members of the teaching staff will participate in the foreign exchange.
For the purposes of the project we will use different ways to actively involve not only the students but also the wider social environment. These include, for example, interviews with citizens, raising awareness through interaction with the social environment, art performances, and regular cleaning of selected locations. The climax of the project is the artistic workshop, which will offer the possibility of upcycling of the found material – waste, which will gain new meaning thanks to its further use. Czech and Turkish students will participate in the creation of art artefacts as part of the international exchange that have been carried out. The presentation of these works of art will provide feedback to students, their parents and citizens to realize the possibilities of re-use of discarded waste.
Participation in the project will bring, above all, the opportunity for the schools involved to cooperate more with the local community and to influence the issues concerning the school’s environment. We believe that the students of the participating schools will continue to think about waste management after the end of the project, adjust their behavior and inspire their families and their immediate surroundings to desirable behavior. We see the continuation of the project mainly in the possibility of repeated cleaning and interventions to locations in our towns and their surroundings.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 34446 Eur

Project Coordinator

Gymnazium a Stredni odborna skola Prelouc & Country: CZ

Project Partners

• ÖZEL TUNALI ANADOLU LİSESİ