Eco-friendly four help Ukraine community to recycle right
A team of young people who took part in the UPSHIFT youth innovation programme are helping to improve recycling in Ukraine.
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For years, locals living in Slobozhanska, a village in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovska region, have helped to save the planet by recycling. But, recently, a group of youngsters noticed that people did not always know how to sort their waste or where to take it for disposal.
Determined to help, Oleksandra, Nataliia, Kateryna and Vladyslava came up with a plan, applying for the UPSHIFT youth innovation programme run by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to receive the mentoring support and resources they needed to implement it.
“At first, we were thinking of delivering new sorting bins,” says 21-year-old Oleksandra. “But later, we realized that there are enough of them in our village. It is more important to raise awareness among the population about how to use them properly and what they are for.”
The ‘Clean Environment’ team decided to focus on informing young people about ecological consumption. To do this, they opened two social clubs – one for paper recycling and the other for printing on clothing. The youngsters also created postcards and notebooks from old books, magazines and exercise books. Later, local authorities invited them to print community newspapers on recycled paper.
“People can come to our club with their waste paper and take part in all the stages of paper recycling – shredding, mixing with water, blending, pulping and drying,” explains 21-year-old team member Kateryna. “We also tried adding seeds to the ‘new sheets’. So when the paper is used again, it can be shredded and ‘planted’ in soil.”
At the clothing club, young people create designs that they print onto old clothes. Additionally, as part of efforts to change the younger generation's attitude towards fast fashion, the team organize flea markets in the local community and use a 3D printer to create keychains from bottle caps. The keychains are then sold at fairs, with the proceeds donated to charity.
On top of all of this, the team organize meetings in the village about hazardous waste disposal and print stickers for use on waste sorting containers. Now, locals can recycle more carefully.
“We have already enlisted the support of public organizations from Dnipro that are involved in ecology,” says 24-year-old team member Nataliia.
“So we will continue our activities and scale them up. UPSHIFT has taught me not to be afraid to do important projects and to act no matter what.”
To date, the Clean Environment team has involved more than 300 young people in their project.
UPSHIFT is a youth innovation programme run by UNICEF. The full-scale war has caused a number of serious humanitarian challenges across Ukraine. Since youth are one of the driving forces in communities, UNICEF is engaging UPSHIFT graduates to address these challenges. Last year, 459 teams (2,003 young people aged 14 to 24) participated in the UPSHIFT programme and developed their projects, reaching more than 30,000 beneficiaries.
