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http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/youth/programme/who_participate_en.php

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Ecology is a science that investigates living

beings’relations with each other and their environment. And

the Ecosystem is the whole of living beings and the

environment. Ecology is interested in the basic topics that

are shared and affected by beings. Ecology includes not only

how living things interact with each other, but how they

interact with their physical environment: things such as

climate, water, and soil.

Recently, there appeared lots of

dangerious events related to ecology such

as global warming, air pollution,

environmental pollution, energy crisis,

and so on.

In Bulgaria, we try to manage these problems with

some Projects and with the help of our

government and local authorities.

Ministry of Education held a Project

called “ Save Energy” and It was held

in all schools.

And also there is

another project that

is held in most of agricultural areas, the

target of this project is the organical

agriculture.

by the bulgarian team

Thats how we should try to solve cultural and social issues:

see beyond the borders and think internationally.

Being citizens it’s not just a matter of living in a spe-

cific places, but it’s about being actively involved in the

process that helps society grow.

The word citizenship is connected with the idea of active

participation and is related to all the areas of human life

and social living.

Nowadays a big gap still exists between what citizenship is

and what it should be.

This implies

that most of

times rights and

du- ties of

the citizens

are not ob-

served in

the same way

for everybody.

This Exchange (Eco-Volunteer Citizenship) is an example of

how we can improve our concept of active citizenship, based

on the sharing of common spaces, living experiences, differ-

ent traditions and the feeling of being part of the same

community.

wrote by the italian team

Volunteering is doing some activites without any

profits and benefits when somebody feels responsibilty for

others or his/her enviroments.

Volunteers are using their knowledge, experiences,

power and abilities by their own decisions without any force.

They can do it as an individual and a group of people.

Volunteers generally take an action on different fields such

as taking care of children, young people, old people,

disabled people, environmental problems, animals and world.

They are sensitive to other’s problems, trying to

make people have awareness of surroundings and they are

working for different projects like social, local, national,

international as a participant, leader, an organizer, contact

person or manager, working for part or full time.

In Croatia, we have lots of organizations where volunteers

can work. There are over 36.000 registered non-governmental

organisations in Croatia. Although the official registry of

NGO's does exist, it includes only basic information, such as

name, address, scope of work and names of legal representa-

tives. By contrast, the NGO database, created to fulfill the

society needs, includes information such as contact details,

organisational structure, vision and mission, available re-

sources, past, ongoing and upcoming activities and projects,

partnerships and other information which ensures transparency

of work. Transparency enables NGOs to inform and include

citizens, especially youth, in their work, as beneficiaries,

volunteers, employees, or active partners. Transparent NGOs

create partnerships with national or local governments, in-

stitutions, businesses and other organizations much easier.

The EU accession procedure has created a need to find quality

partners in particular geographic region, either national or

European-wide.

written by the croatian team

Non formal education is an education which is out of school

for young people, adults and especially people with disadvantages to

provide their needs and interests. It is various and flexible. It

changes according to target groups ages, level of education and

aims. It consists of education of literacy, art, technology and

health, awareness of ecology, intercultural learning, trainings to

improve abilities and understanding the roles of social life and

gender. It does not last like formal education and it is applied in

a short and flexible time. It is individual, practical, student

centered, focused on selfcontrol , based on outcomes of the

education and done according to needs of the society.

It is also used by life

long learning programmes.

In modern life, formal

education is not enough if

it is not supplied by non

formal education. Students

must be provided with

alternative educational

programmes to improve

themselves on different

subjects. Besides students,

people who are working in

different jobs and graduted

from colleges and universities cannot use their knowledge throughout

their life. They should refresh their knowledge with the ne ones. As

the technology develops everyday and information is also changing .

To reach recent event and information, people who graduated and

finished their education should go on with non formal education.

In Turkey, there are lots of non formal education institutions.

There are some privite courses provided by teachers for the students

to take help with their lessons in addition to school. And also for

adults, there are some literacy courses. In addition to these there

are various kind of courses provided by the government. They are

about topics like art,technology, health,literacy and so on.Everyone

whoever wants can participate them.

written by the turkish team

Romania is a member of the EU since January 2007 and, even

though progress has been made, there are still huge gaps in

the environmental field. Main problems are: selective col-

lection, high level of carbon emissions, waste depositing

and disposal, eco-education.

The people are not informed, but also very passive when it

comes to ecological issues. This is due to the fact that

Romania has a broad pallet of problems (economical, politi-

cal, social, etc), which take most of the public attention.

There are ancient ecological activities that can be easily

applied in our days: planting trees, using natural fertil-

izer, saving water, more physical activities, recycle dif-

ferent materials and have a special and deeper connection

with the environment.

From our point of view everything starts from the bad man-

agement of the local and central authorities, but also from

the negative behavior at personal level. Education and, most

important, eco-education should be a priority in the immedi-

ate future in order to see some impact. In addition, changes

in the environmental legislation need to occur, not only

because of the ecological issues, but also because of the

possible future sanctions coming from the EU Commission.

We propose the Eco-aholic 10 ways of lifestyle!

written by the romanian team

As with most worthwhile endeavors, the task of improving the ecolo-gic state of the world requires far more work than there will ever be paid compensation for. The need for volunteerism in this field is integral. Yet, volunteerism is a concept laden with idealism and susceptible to contradictory motivations. Ecological volunteerism combines the challenges of volunteering with those of the ecological movement, meaning that planning must address both sets. Primary amongst those are: What constitutes ecologic volunteering and how can efficacy be measured? These two questions are not merely related. The former depends on the latter’s answer. Volunteering to clean a school playground suf-fers from limited efficacy if the students of that school fill the grounds with refuse again at the end of each day. Likewise, trying an educational program about the benefits of properly disposing of their refuse is no guarantee that students would clean their play-ground, even if they stopped personally adding to the problem. In both cases, real and sincere work would have been done by volunteers with little to show for it. If these volunteers returned to their homes feeling that they had done a good job, they would actually be doing a disservice to their cause if that feeling of satisfaction disinclines them to critically evaluate their efforts. If a sustainably clean playground was the end-goal, simply giving forth one’s time and effort is not enough. However, it is enough if the volunteer’s motivation comes from their desire to benefit so-cially. There are very real social benefits rendered as payment to volunteers, and while there is nothing wrong with benefiting from volunteering, the satisfaction received will differ from another volunteer who is motivated to change the situation. The result of which is that a volunteer who spent all afternoon cleaning up a playground may go home feeling very good about themselves and the appreciation shown by their community. That same volunteer may la-ment that the playground was trash-strewn again a few days later, while still feeling satisfied about their effort. Thus, a volun-teer’s motivation is spent and lost with nothing to show for it. Clarity of purpose is the critical component of any volunteerism worthy of respect. The volunteer must know the reasons motivating them to volunteer, the goals they are after, and the ways they will evaluate the results of their efforts. No single volunteer effort is universally respected, worthy or valuable. Observers will always be in a position to draw their own critical conclusions, yet it is up to the volunteer to decide for themselves. Waiting until afterward to make this decision makes little sense.

written by Michael from U.S.A.

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