Spring is a time of bloom of new initiatives, ideas and campaigns. And the great time for great ideas, new projects and endless creativity is around the corner! Fortunately, AEGEE is not exception and this spring Environmental Working Group (EnWG) presents brand new concept of European Day of Environment (EDE) 2012. The AEGEEan had the chance to be the first to get acquainted with the new concept and talk with busy and never resting coordinators of EDE 2012 – Diana Yolova and Davide Lo Presti.
Dear Diana and Davide, please tell us how you came up with the idea to change the EDE.
EDE is an event that AEGEE promotes every year to support local antennae to raise awareness on sustainability issues by organising a green day out with their members! EDE 2012, of course, wants to keep this spirit but with a brand new format which will create new links between antennae and that will provide useful information for local antennae as well as to the EnWG board.
Think about it. Tens of antennae organise an EDE, hundreds of members will pass a “green” day out together by having a chance to discuss sustainability. Why not link all those people around Europe by making the EDE an event aimed first at learning together and transfering knowledge to others later? And EDE 2012 will not only give freedom to local antennae to organise an event in AEGEE style, but it will also represent a proper campaign on different understanding and interpretation of sustainability in many cities around Europe.
Tell us more about the new concept of EDE 2012.
EDE coordination is using a web-based system called “PEARLTREES”. The Pearltrees will allow participants to grow a virtual European Tree of Sustainability simply by surfing the Internet. In fact, the tree is a collection of web links which shows examples of sustainable living in various cities of Europe. For the 5th anniversary of the EnWG this tree will have 5 branches based on 5 Green Topics: 1) Energy; 2) Waste (Recycling); 3) Food & Water; 4) Transport; 5) Lifestyle.
Why exactly were those 5 key topics chosen as focus for EDE 2012?
The topics are surely broad enough to give many chances to participants to provide “green” examples. Furthermore, they represent 4 out of 7 main themes of Rio+20 and in our opinion they are the ones which will help focus the campaign on sustainability issues in urban systems.
What outcome do you expect after all locals engage in growing the tree?
From March 2012 until 5th June, AEGEE antennae can join the EDE’12, teaming up with other antennae and start growing the tree on the Web. At the end the EDE’12, the team will summarise the findings and prepare the “Fruits of the Tree”. The Fruits could be a used by each local antenna during their “Green day out” to raise awareness effectively between all members, but the main aim of this campaign is to deliver them to the EnWG so that AEGEE representatives could present them at various conferences on sustainability (e.g. Rio+20)
The idea is great and the expected result is even greater. So don’t miss out the chance to take part in EDE 2012 and become a part of family growing the common European Tree of Sustainability!
You can contact EDE 2012 team at email: EDE2012.aegee@gmail.com, facebook: Aegee – EDE 2012 or visit http://www.wg.aegee.org/enwg/EDE.html.
Written by Olga Iatsyna, AEGEE-Dnipropetrovsk