The main goal of the project was to raise awareness among the participants of the internship about the harmfulness of plastics, to draw attention to environmental protection, and to selective waste collection. The goal was also to seek and find solutions to minimize or replace plastics in households, such as straws, bags, or shopping bags.
Our goal was also to ensure that the participants used as little plastic and packaging material as possible during their week-long stay in Slovakia and tried to replace them with alternative materials, or to lead young people to environmental protection and an environmental lifestyle.
Fortunately, within the project we were able to implement several activities focused on environmental protection. One of these was a bottle deposit initiative. Since it is not possible to completely eliminate plastics from everyday life, we made an effort to collect unused or unnecessary PET bottles each day and take them to designated recycling points.
Another activity was organized with the help of a local seamstress. The participants first attended a short presentation on how plastic bags can be replaced with handmade canvas bags and reusable fabric packaging.
In the next program, the participants had the opportunity to make jewelry from recycled materials: plastics, old clothes, but also buttons. There are no limits to imagination, they say, and so they made truly unique and interesting earrings, bracelets, but also rings.
The participants also had the opportunity to bake homemade, crispy bread while learning about the entire preparation process — from gathering the necessary ingredients, preparing and proofing the dough, baking it in the oven, to serving the finished product. Through this activity, we wanted to show them that delicious bread can be baked at home using just a few simple ingredients found in almost every household.
In addition to the practical part, theory and group activities also played an important role.
The project participants came from Spain, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia.