October

On the 18th of October our association conducted a joint work re-establishing rapid torrents in the river Gauja. We did this by putting large stones in the river, therefore giving the river more oxygen. We also had a great participation from local community, which seems to establish a culture of taking care of their local river, therefore making them more aware of environmental issues in general.

We had an amazing film/debate evening on the 21st of October, featuring a Slovak documentary film  "Climate Change Causes and Countermeasures", provided to us by our friends in Hnuti Brontosaurus. People (mostly university students) seemed to be very interested in the topic and surprised by the easy ways in which we can change things using simple methods.

On the 31st of October we organised an environmental photography workshop. First, we went outside, taking nice pictures of autumn nature, then we went indoors – in our local university's multimedia lab. There, we learned basic instruments how to edit our pictures and make them look even more lively and capture the essence of the beauty which everyone of us had captured with the camera. It was a total success and the multimedia lab where we learned was full.

November

In November we also participated in different activities, but one of the most influential was a road trip to a waste management station, where they gather all recycled and not-recycled trash and produce a natural gas out of it, or send recycled material further to make new things out of it. It was conducted by Vidzeme University's Student Council's Environment department and also some of us took part in it, because our organisations have merged on some level through local activities.

Recently, on the 20th of November, we had another film/debate evening where we discussed about U.N. sustainable development planning document – "Agenda 21", watching a film and discussing about responsibilities of countries to take upon sustainability and which countries should contribute more to that. It was a very fun, yet serious discussion on this relevant topic.

Upcoming in December!

First, we will give presentations to local schools about possibilities of European Voluntary Service. We find that it is our responsibility to inform school youth on the possibility of this amazing adventure that actually not so many people in Latvia know about.

We will also conduct another film/debate evening, hopefully we'll manage to find an interesting and debatable topic this time too, because this semester it seems as if a lot of people are interested in discussing environmental topics.

And we will finish the year 2014 with an awesome "Environmental Christmas" evening on the 16th of December, with association BALTA DABA and Vidzeme University Student Council's Green Department. We will invite all participants from local and regional activities this season and enjoy a "throwback" in activities by looking at the pictures, snacking and just hanging out with each other.

There is another thing we want to do – to make a calendar for year 2015, consisting only of our participants' pictures and if we will be successful in making it, we will be happy to share!

We wish you all Merry Christmas and a happy, successful and simply lovely upcoming year 2015!

Stay GREEN, folks :)

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Environmental Youth Association BALTA DABA