The main topics of this project are consumerism and environmentalism. We aim to explore the cause-effect relations between the two concepts, therefore the activities we envisage are all meant to develop students’ deep understanding of the attitudes that govern consumerism and of its consequences upon the environment. Our most important objectives are to help individuals-students, teachers, parents, communities, to develop life skills and entrepreneurial skills. A change in mentality is expected to occur while and after implementing this project. Students, teachers and whole communities need to alter their perception on consumerism as it often has a detrimental effect on nature, on human relationships, on human lives in general. Once people realize that excessive consumption does a lot of damage to them and to the environment, they will try to make intelligent choices in terms of purchases and to improve the quality of the environment they live in. We plan to carry out activities meant to provide our target groups with financial education- how to manage personal budgets and time, how to assess the quality of goods and services, learning about consumers’ rights. We intend to instil healthy attitudes and values in our target groups. They will be encouraged to donate the objects that are in good condition and they no longer use. We are going to do this during the 3R activity (Re-use, Recycle Room) organized in each partner school.Excess in consumption habits influences the quality of the environment too. It is our goal to inoculate love for nature to our students who seem to care more about technology nowadays. The hobby garden is the activity designed in this respect. We also plan to organize study visits in local factories. In this way students will learn how a business is run and they will also try to convince entrepreneurs to be more responsible, socially and environmentally. Our hope is that, one day, the participant students will set their own companies but their entrepreneurial behaviour will be different from what occurs in the world of business today. They will be more careful so as to diminish the negative impact on the environment and they will be social entrepreneurs, that is they will be more concerned with the community, not with figures or the amount of profit to gain. We set some ambitious targets and we are confident that we will achieve them as we possess the knowledge and expertise in the chosen topics. As this will be our second collaboration, with sme partners, after the Erasmus+ projects of “LET'S PEDAL” and “ I HAVE A DREAM” the institutional relation among our schools will become stronger and it will lead to an improved European educational system, in point of formal, non-formal and informal education for the young generation or for lifelong learning.
We implemented 'The Wise and Eco-Friendly Consumer' project with a focus on consumerism and environmentalism. We investigated cause-effect relationships between the two concepts. For this reason, we have thoroughly examined all of the activities that we have implemented, why our target audience, preschool children and young people, are directed to consume so much and the environmental damages caused by consumption. We received information presentations from experts on this issue. It has emerged by sharing our experiences in the transnational project meetings with the project leaders, where there are changes in the participants' view of life in every mobility and dissemination of this project. The relationship between nature and human is important for our project. The love of nature and the information that we need to protect the nature of the mobility of our project have been imposed on the participants' consciousness. The participants realized that excessive consumption caused too much harm to themselves and the environment, began to make wise choices about consumption and to try to improve the quality of the environment in which they live. Our participants used social media effectively with their shared awareness videos on this subject. And we continue to share on our facebook page. We provided financial trainings to our target groups in our Italian mobility, and gave information presentations on how to manage personal budgets and time, evaluate the quality of goods and services, and learn about the rights of consumers. We have set up our 3R recycling and sharing room that we have organized in each partner school and have organized it together. We have tried to deliver the products in each partner school's 3R recycling room to individuals in need with different applications and we will continue to use this recycling room. In order to change our consumption habits, we carried out studies on a different consumption issue in each activity. Today, we aim to instill the love of nature for our young people who give more importance to technology. With our hobby garden event, we put responsibilities on the youth. We have given the task of protecting the fruit trees we planted together and transferring them to new generations. We also visited local factories every time we mobilized. In this way, the students observed the stages of a product before it came to our table and the difficulties of producing it. Our goal was to see the difficulties in the production phase and to think again when consuming. We believe that when our participating students set up their own companies in the future, they will remember these experiences and shape their lives accordingly. After Erasmus + “LET'S PEDAL”, “I HAVE A DREAM” and THE THE WISE AND ECO-FRIENDLY CONSUMER projects, the institutional relationship between our schools became stronger. And together we prepared 'EAT RIGHT BE LIGHT' project. Together we will perform our work finds contributing to the European education system and Turkey education system.