This weekend our friends from Ukrainian Youth Climate Association feat. partners visited the city of Rivne in Western Ukraine to plant seeds of climate leadership in a follow up of GPS. Shortly after the 2-days workshop on ‘Practice of eco-social projects and adaptation to climate change’ local activist Olexandra posted an article of inspiration based on her participation, an abridged version of which you can read here.
An unprecedented event took place at Rivne Region Library. Representatives from the environmental movement, namely UYCA and National Environmental Center of Ukraine, came to us from Kyiv. With the help from Ecoclub Rivne they held presentations about the Planet’s changing climate and workshops where they taught us how to organize an activists’ team, create projects and attract funds.
Green minded citizens of Rivne met on Friday evening to watch the ‘Chasing Ice’ movie. This dramatic documentary impressed the viewers from the very first minutes: a foolhardy photographer who, regardless having two surgeries on his leg, visited Alaska, Greenland and Iceland to station photo-cameras in order to witness irreversible multi-kilometers glaciers melting. The movie nailed it – a concept of global warming became, at last, clear for us. After the movie UYCA members told us about their work, projects and achievements. The first meeting ended with a pleasant conversation and a cup of herbal tea.
On Saturday morning the workshop began with eco-friendly presents to participants and an ice-breaker game after which we all felt like good friends. The first session was on adaptation to climate change. First of all, we learned that global warming doesn’t always mean getting warmer in every place. Consequences of this phenomenon lead to growth of critical temperature points, meaning the temperature rises abnormally high in some places in summer and is abnormally low in winter. Plus, extreme weather events like floods, hurricanes, hail, become more frequent, even on the territories where they didn’t happen before. The audience also received the criteria to assess their cities’ vulnerabilities to climate change and learned the ways of adaptation.
Then UYCA did something incredible – with the help of their presentations, graphs and practical sessions with the participants, after breaks to play games and snack with apples-cookies-nuts, our groups were able to develop their own project ideas to adjust their cities to changing climate and to promote this topic amongst the public. The time and the activists’ enthusiasm will show how realistic they are.
The first idea under title ‘Green Sky’ is about making a roof of the Rivne Library green, by renovating the roof itself and planting a lawn, a flower bed or a vegetable patch there, so that people can spend time with books on the roof. Another project is called ‘Rivne Giants’ and is inspired by the oldest trees of Rivne; the activists group wants to create a map and an eco-touristic rout devoted to these giants. The third group came up with the idea called ‘Re-Park’. They want to clean up and renovate a green area around the Youth Palace in the city and already planned the next meeting to go in depth with organizing. And the fourth initiative, quite ambitious as for the beginners, is an environmental festival named ‘Zelen’ka’ (‘Greeny’). The aim is to connect to the nature in the city center. The tricky part is the fact that none of the group members has experience in organizing events of this kind. Nonetheless, they though up a slogan ‘A seedling will become a tree’ and we hope that the seedling of this idea will grow into a strong tree with thick trunk and rich crown till the end of the year. As will all the ideas do.
After the library was closed and the 2-days marathon of workshop came to an end, we relaxed in a fresh air outdoors. All the participants were making seed bombs seating on street curbs. These mixtures of clay, humus, water and flower seed shaped in forms of hearts, balls and grenades will not only remain in the participants’ memory, but will bud on the soil patches all over Rivne as reminders of interesting, easy and informative workshop.
Participants’ impressions:
Andriy Orlov – It’s not easy to find words for my impressions. I haven’t met such friendly and patriotic people since long. I liked the most that learning was in a dynamic form, meaning we didn’t just seat and listen, but played thematic games all the time, drew projects and discussed them with everyone.
Marichka Sydoruk – Before I came to the workshop I didn’t expect that my perception of Rivne would change so much. Now I see it very differently. I can see what and where has to be changed, done, realized. And even more – I now know how to do it; I have a team and know where to get resources! (from a press-release)
Olexandra Radkevych for Zdolbunivcity.net. Photos by the author and by Helen Angelova from UYCA. Translated by Yuliya Makliuk for 350.org.