Between the 18th and 24th of November, there was the 21st annual celebration of Global Education Week which is annually implemented by the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe. The theme of this year's week was "Wake Up! This is the final call for climate”. With this occasion, The Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe widened our actions against climate change and organized several events and activities in this scope.
Throughout the whole week, we daily published in social media several posts with informative graphics about climate change and its effects with the aim of reaching more people and raising awareness about this issue. We shared various facts about climate change and related news around the world, as well as several examples of practical actions that can be taken against climate change.
On 18th, the teachers working at the kindergarten Zielona Kraina made a small but introductory presentation to the kids about climate change and what is and will be happening in relation to climate change. Also, at 19.30 of the same day, we organized the free screening of the eye-opening documentary “Before the Flood” by Leonardo DiCaprio in cooperation with the National Geographic. The participants were mostly teenagers between the age of 15 and 18 and it was joyful for us to see that they were quite attentive and ready to learn more and act efficiently against climate change.
On 19th, we organized a workshop called “Let’s Paint Together” for the kids from kindergarten to express what they have learned and how they feel about climate change. Although it was a little bit tough topic for them to understand, we saw that they were quite interested in climate change and ecology in general and they enjoyed painting together.
On 21st, we organized "We are making our own musical instruments!" activity with the kindergarten kids. It was a small workshop where they could make their own DIY music instrument and with this workshop, we aimed to teach them the importance of recycling. The end result of the workshop was worth the whole chaos!
On 22nd, we organized "Let's Swap the Toys" day for the kindergarten kids. During this event, the kids exchanged their toys with each other. Our aim was to teach the kids the importance of sharing, as well as helping them to improve their communicational skills because sharing is one of the best ways to deal with climate change and it becomes more effective with people who have advanced social skills.
On the 22nd and 23rd, we organized “The Swap Days”. For this event, the local people and the guests, employees, and volunteers at Krzyżowa Foundation were invited to bring their unnecessary stuff (clothes, accessories, books, etc.) and exchange them with other people. During these two days, the people swapped their things without using money. We believe that exchanging our unnecessary belongings with other people or giving them to others without money instead of just throwing them away is one of the best ways in the long and tough road to fight against climate change. Therefore, we tried to make this idea real at the Foundation.