Green Culture Expedition 2016
Part one – 11-14 May 2016 / Ada Bojana – Ulcinj/Montenegro
Eco Kids, Up-cycling and Recycling workshop for children with Jetlir Kovaçi
The main idea of the Up-cycling and Recycling workshop is to work with children on the green issues and convey the message that everything can be useful, so we must all be more careful in the way we are consuming products. To inspire the young population and point out that not always we need money to make something, and that we can even make use of waste materials. A large percentage of materials we consume every day goes in vain. There are many good reasons to reduce, reuse and recycle. Everything we use has to come from somewhere and must go somewhere once we’re finished with it. So as long as we successfully explain the basics through hand on examples, we have made the first positive step forward. And as Gandhi said, every thousand mile journey starts with the first step.
After the last year’s successful workshop, where around 20 children have participated learning about the benefits of recycling and the circular life of the materials, this was my second time to lead a workshop with children in this event. Last year, in September, Green Culture Fest brought together these children and we made a workshop named “Recycling and up-cycling” where children had a chance to work with recycled materials as cans, bottles and other stuff, and make different things with them. It is important to educate children that we can also make different things by recycled materials and thus to show that this can be a good way to contribute on protecting our surroundings and not to waste materials. Besides being effectual it was a great and enjoyable day for children.
Unlike last year, this year’s workshop was a bit different. We have called children ’’Eco Kids’’ and the idea of the workshop was that besides recycled materials to work with ecological (natural) materials, too. A day before the workshop there were collected some smooth stones from Valdanos beach and wooden pieces from Dragina village. Some other materials were collected by children during the workshop on the beach nearby workshop place.
Firstly, we started talking with children about the ecology, nature, its importance and so on and then by asking the question: ’’What is the first thing that comes to your mind when we say Eco?’’ each child said something. We wrote on the board all words and then each child wrote a few sentences with these words. As a next step, children started to paint on smooth stones and wooden pieces taking inspiration from the conversation we had about the eco and from the sentences they wrote.
The second part of the workshop was made with recycled materials and we made a boat and small fishes from cartons, newspapers etc. and decorated them with shells and bamboo canes which children have collected on the beach.
During the workshop there was present also the teacher of children, our famous painter in Ulcinj, Vahida Nimanbegu, who I want to thank a lot for her helping and supporting in this workshop. I think that this workshop was useful and a good experience for children. This is just beginning, we have to continue to work with children on this issue because it is very important to start this education from the early age, and Green Culture will continue to do this in a good way. All of us should contribute on this. More work is steel needed to raise the awareness of sustainability.
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