Green Heroes, 15-23 May 2022, Norway

  This climate change is impacting strongly on local communities around Europe, creating big problems for agriculture and housing.

  Another big issue for the environment is the use of single-use plastic in our daily life. As settled in the European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy it is important to introduce plastic into a circular economy, with the aim to have a completely recycled usage of plastic in the next years.

  "Green Heroes" is a project created by an idea of the students/participants/volunteers of Akademiet Oslo as, and it has the aim to promote a more sustainable way of living for young people, by increasing their awareness on the issues of climate change and global warming and by giving them tools and knowledges to act in a eco-friendly way and recognize how to buy sustainable products in their daily routine. This intercept the needs of the local community of the volunteers, who are daily facing serious problems with rubbish in their city and want to find a way to the local community in being more consistent on a green way of living.

  In addition, developing new ideas on how to minimize waste and recycle properly will be another important part of the project, in order to promote the reduction of the use of single-plastic products, which are detrimental for our environment.

​  "Green Heroes" aims are to tackle challenges related to global environmental issues, sustainable growth and, especially, the lack of social involvement and engagement of young people, and to strive to encourage them to take serious action at any level by increasing their environmental citizenship. Those aims are strictly connected with the aims of the European Union and its plans to reduce pollution and single plastic use, as settled in the EU-wide plastic strategy.

THE RESULTS:
- 10 participants from Lithuania participated in the youth exchange that took place in Norway. Participants gained deeper insight into the influence of outdoor education on self-esteem, self-awareness.
- Participants worked on the development of their personal and professional competencies in an international setting (communication, teamwork, problem-solving, conflict management, facilitation, and presentation).
- This project inspired to organise river cleaning activity together with Kaunas university of technologies student union. The event will be organised during the spring time in Dzūkija national park. Activity participants will go kayaking and collect the trashes from the rivers - Ūla, Grūda, Merkys, Nemunas. All the information about this event will be posted in international website www.river-cleanup.org/en/lithuania