Teaching villagers to save their environment

We were recently fortunate enough to win a grant from the Norwegian Embassy in Bucharest, Romania to teach the people of our villages about their environment and steps they can take to help conserve it.  Our project consists of the following activities:

1) We will be hosting a series of ecological education and conservation seminars in the villages of Cot, Climautii de Jos, Vadul-Rascov and Socol.  The target audience will be the youth of the four villages, and they will learn about the Nistru river environment, native fauna and vegetation, and the importance of conservation.  They will learn to respect nature and use their natural resources wisely.

2) We will be organizing a litter pickup campaign along the Nistru riverbank.  Youth from the four villages will volunteer their time to walk along the riverbank and pickup trash.  Volunteerism is key to creating strong civil societies and this campaign will raise civic and national pride.  In conjunction with this campaign, the local public administration will construct ten public garbage cans near paths leading to the riverbank.  This should decrease the amount of litter on the riverbank and encourage the community to treat public spaces with respect and dispose of litter properly.

3) Finally, we will create an ecological literature collection at the Vadul-Rascov public library and publicize the seminars and litter pickup throughout the region.  Since there is very little information available locally on ecology and on environmental conservation, and even fewer on the local environment, AO INFO-TERRA will publish a booklet, “Our Nistru” to specifically address this problem.

We are in the process of organizing the first of the seminars and look forward to updating you as the project runs.