On Monday and Tuesday- the 10th and 11th of June several high schools in Kazanlak gave us a chance to present our Eco Festival to their students. The task, which sounds pretty simple, turned out to be challenging. One learns that language isn’t the only barrier in communication.

Those days our organizational team split into smaller groups, and visited several high schools with our presentation about European Voluntary Service, ecology and our festival. Why we were here, what we do and how young people can get involved in saving our planet were the messages we wanted to share. Since youngsters will be the most affected if people continue with their current lifestyle- thoughtless consumption and increasing pollution, and at the same time they can do so much to change it, but know almost nothing about the problem and its seriousness, we reached out to them in their schools and tried to engage them.

We know what it feels like. After all we are the same as them. How can I, one person, change it? Media intimidates us with huge numbers like “137 thousand of cigarette butts are thrown away every second and pollute the water”. Even if I stop smoking, how much would it change the number? It’s useless.

“It doesn’t matter if I throw away packaging on a street, there is a city service, they will clean it.”

Really? Read Julia’s article “Trash Art: or 15 Mins of Collecting Trash”. Why is there so much trash in nature then? Wind can blow it anywhere – to places where nobody will take care of it. And the thing is that nobody likes it, but at the same time nobody will take the responsibility for someone’s else rubbish.

We feel the same. Too small to go against the mass. But by continuing, nothing has changed. You always have to start with yourself. It makes sense.

For us it was a great experience. Most of us have never presented some idea in front of many people, tried to make a discussion with them, involve them. We have got immediate feedback, sometimes surprising in both ways, good and bad. And both of them gave us a clue what we have done wrong and how to do it better next time. In any case the best thing on top of it was to see people taking pictures of our presentation, making notes of where and when the festival will be or asking questions. Also the schools, which gave us the opportunity, show that they care about the environment, and that’s what gives us energy to continue.

So we hope to see you all at the festival 😉