Another successful YEE project took place! Youth exchange "Three Rs for the Environment" was organised on 6-14 June in Moldova. The project was hosted by our member organisation Gutta-club who also suggested this youth exchange at YEE Annual Meeting 2013. The project was attended by 30 young people from 6 countries: Czech Republic, Moldova, Georgia, Russia, Portugal and Romania.

The youth exchange was organised for young people who are concerned about the problem of waste management in their and other European countries. The main aim of the project was to bring young people together to exchange experience and knowledge about waste management and work on various ways of promoting sustainable lifestyle.

The project was inspired by the Upcycling Campaign organised by YEE in 2013.

The youth exchange started with more general discussions about waste management: the participants took part in World Café session to share and discuss why waste management is important, why there is so much waste in the world and what is the best way of educating about it. We also had space to discuss and learn more about waste hierarchy and European policy on waste. The first days were also dedicated to team-building and getting to know each other and the place around. The participants visited the small village which was close to the venue and met local residents who were also interested to know about the international project.

Next days were more about sharing and practicing. It was time for the participants to make their presentations about waste management in their countries. Each national group also had to organise a workshop for the rest of participants about a creative way of dealing with waste. The majority of participants were inspired by the idea of upcycling and thus we learned new ways of creating something out of garbage. As a follow-up of the project we will create online guides with these upcycling ideas.
Besides learning about waste management, the participants also learned a lot about Moldova and Moldovan nature. On the last day but one we had a local action in a village Tipova, which is really popular among tourists because of its natural and beautiful canyons. The participants organised a clean-up action and gathered a lot of garbage.

We hope that this project was a big inspiration for the participants to lead more sustainable lifestyle and promote it in their local communities as well.

The project has been co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union.