The project Green in Everyday Life arises from the interest of some of the participants of Spanish Green Homes Network (Columbares and CENEAM) to test the national Spanish program Green Homes (GH) on international level. The project follows the first such experience – a training course in the mark of Youth in Action program, which was highly successful, confirmed the interest of international partners in this topic and helped form the base for a good partnership. The main objectives of the project is to raise awareness on the issues of sustainability, educate people on the relation between their everyday choices and the state of the environment, produce a provable decrease in the ecological footprint of direct beneficiaries of the GH program and promote exchange of experiences and cooperation among environmental organizations on international level. The number of direct beneficiaries of the project will reach 510. Many different groups will be represented, as each country will work with different collectives. In case of Sweden the main beneficiaries will be young families, in case of Spain – people with disabilities and addiction problems, in case of UK – families with low income and criminality problems in past. Italy will work with classes from local schools, while Morocco will work with rural youth in schools and Jordan with urban youth and their families. The main activities of the project include organization of 5 mini Green Homes outside of Spain (in Sweden, Italy, UK, Morocco and Jordan) and one in Spain, analysis the experiences and the results obtained, as well as prepare GH guide for open use by other organizations interested in repeating the program and found an International Green Homes Network. The main methodology used during the project will be GH program – a methodology developed in Spain, which consists of environmental audits and a cycle of workshops with a group of persons on saving of water and energy, waste reduction, sustainable mobility and responsible consumption. Besides that the participants receive savings kits – tools for reduction of their ecological footprint. What differs this program from the general environmental education activities is its result oriented approach – the gas, electricity and water bills collected before and during the program and the questionnaires filled in before and after the cycle of the workshops are used to determine if the program has reached its objectives and demonstrate a clear reduction in the ecological footprint of the participants and monetary saving made. The main result of the project include the GH starters kit meant to be used by partner organizations and other organizations willing to implement the program during the project, A study “Lessons learned from implementing GH program in 6 countries” resuming the results and conclusions from all the participant countries, GH program guide – an extensive guide to GH program including all the activities implemented by partner organizations during the program, the website of the project with information on the activities and general development of the project, as well as International GH Network. The main impact of the project will be the decrease in the ecological footprint of the direct beneficiaries, which, when transmitted to their friends and family, can have an impact on their ecological footprint as well, thus increasing the general sustainability of the society. Besides that the project will promote cooperation and exchange of experiences between different entities and regions in field of environmental education and will serve as a source of documentation and educational materials for other entities. The main long term impact of the project will come through the International GH Network, which will unite organizations interested in implementing GH program in their societies and a common international educational space. This Network will provide space for exchange of experiences, information and plans for cooperation.
Green in Everyday Life (GIEL) (http://www.green4life.world/home.html) is a project funded by EU Programme for Education, Training, Youth and Sport ERASMUS+ to promote sustainable behaviours between different target groups. The project methodology comes from a Spanish national program called Green Homes (GH) (http://www.magrama.gob.es/es/ceneam/programas-de-educacion-ambiental/hogares-verdes/). GH is an educational programme for families that are concerned about the environmental and social impact of their decisions and daily habits. GIEL is the first international experience of GH, working with different target groups in various countries in Europe, Middle East and North Africa. In each partner country, each partner entity has adapted the methodology of GH to the reality of their territory and the profile of their target group. The objectives of the project are promoting a moderate use of resources by encouraging individual responsibility; raising awareness on environmental issues related to the use of energy, water, waste and mobility; improving key skills and offer new educational tools for educators and partner organizations and creating a European level space of lifelong learning for environmental education. Seven partners have participated in this project: • Asociación Columbares, in charged of coordinating the project and implementing the activities with immigrant families. • Centro Nacional de Educación Ambiental (CENEAM), in charged of advising all project partners in the implementation of GH in their countries, given their extensive experience as coordinator of the Spanish network entity. • Consorzio ABN, working with primary schools. • Insider Access, working with families, prisoners and ex-prisoners. • Global Playground Stockholm, working with young families. • Bassin Guir Association for Development and Protection of the Environment, working with primary schools and families in rural communities. • East & West Center for Human Resources Development, working with families and youngsters. The main activities of the project included: 1. Initial training course, in which the partners learned how to implement GH in their countries. They received the Green Homes Starters Kit (http://www.green4life.world/training.html), a complete guide to run the GH, including background information, training materials, games, quizes and GH audit materials. 2. Development of awareness rising activities by each partner in their home countries with different target groups, such as environmental audits with delivery of a domestic savings kits, educational workshops and analysis of the savings of the participants. 3. Development of Green4life Manual (http://www.green4life.world/training.html), a complete guide to running the GH, including information about the methodology of implementation, educational materials, advices and the experiences of one year working from each partner, with the adaptations for different target groups and different contexts. It also contains four examples on educational activities of each partner, considered by the team as the best practices developed in every country. 4. Creation of the Green4life Network (http://www.green4life.world/network.html), a virtual space of green ‘thinkers’ that will combine international exchange of experiences, transfer of methodologies, educational materials and knowledge transfer in GIEL related areas, which continues to function after the project is completed. 5. Dissemination activities: The most important are: a) Hogares Verdes-Green4life conference. A seminar in which,-for the first time, the participants of the GIEL project met the members of the Spanish Green Homes network and presented them the results of the project in each country and pose new challenges internationally. b) Changing lives-sustainable futures conference, in which the value of GIEL project to engage disadvantaged groups was analyzed and discussed. c) Dissemination videos, in which the activities, results and origin of GIEL project is explained. It is estimated that the project activities have reached around 1.500 people. Between the main results, we can delight the 254 immigrants who have participated in Columbares’ activities; the reduction of water consumption in an Italian school by 10 %; the influence that the project have had in Morocco in improving the local environmental politics; the reduction at about 20 % in electricity and 35 % in water in Jordan, as well as the 20 young people trained to be environmental auditors in this country; the way the project promoted the confidence of prisoners in England and the way it was an inspiration for promoting an eco-enterprise or the improving in recycling and using of bikes in Sweden. The main results, in terms of longer-term benefits, include the Green4life Manual and the Green4life network (explained before).