What do you do to play your part in looking after the environment?

Posted by admin in Azerbaijan Contributor / February 12, 2020

By Leyla Babayeva

Young people can play an active role in protecting and improving the environment. There is no doubt that youth can change their lifestyle in a way to affect the environment. They can make their homes, schools and youth organizations more environmentally friendly by adopting friendly practices, recycling of different materials as well as preserving resources such as water and electricity. Engaging youth in environmental protection not only creates direct impact on changing youth behaviours and attitudes, but possibly can influence their parents and relatives.

 

Young people are back bone of society and they can change the future with their courageous behaviour. In the last decade, several environmental initiatives have taken place in Azerbaijan and when young people join the initiatives they strongly contribute in raising environmental awareness. I would like to give an example about “EcoArt” – a project that has been implemented last year in Sumgayit, the third biggest city in Azerbaijan. The main idea of this project was to increase environmental awareness among the population through encouraging them to utilise trash boxes to support the “Clean City, Clean Community”, initiative. For this purpose the group of young people cooperated with the local government and painted trash boxes located in 7 different districts of Sumgayit. Through this initiative we presented important Environmental messages to the local people. I joined to this project with great pleasure, first of all it completely supported my values regarding environmental protection, secondly to pass all messages we used art component, which is directly related to my professional background. It gave me assurance that Art can be great way to increase environmental awareness.

 

In addition, in a very short period I was a volunteer of International School Project – SPARE, where we focused on improvement of energy efficiency, biodiversity, and waste management. We closely cooperated with the schools and worked with the students in order to disseminate information about ongoing environmental issues. By applying the energy efficiency knowledge at home and schools, we could then help to save natural resources and even personal budgets. Additionally, discarding computers, electrical appliances and rechargeable batteries can seriously harm the environment so the youth role was to implement recycling programs for used computers and electrical appliances. As well as this we actively participated in tree planting campaigns, which were organised with the Ministry of Environmental and Natural Resources of AR. We also conducted “Energy Saving” week and invited schools took participation in order to contribute energy efficiency in our country.

 

Finally I would like to highlight that the earth provides all the necessary resources for human beings to survive and prosper. But as the global population grows and develops the demand for energy and consumer goods increases. This has led to increased pollution and misuse of natural resources, causing great damage to the environment. But I believe that such projects can make a big differences in people`s minds, behaviour and attitudes. Because every single contribution towards to environment is important and able to save our planet.

 

More about Leyla:

Leyla Babayeva is a 2nd year student at State Art Academy. Her first education is related to environment and ecology. She is very proud that can combine two different fields to contribute one main issue – Environmental protection. She believes that Art can be key to raise main social challenges that are valuable for every society.

She is especially interesting on street art, as she believe that it is free format of art and able to have a great impact.

Author: admin

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