On July 21, 2024, the Green Triangle project reached its final event as the team visited Gombasek in eastern Slovakia. As part of the Gombasek Summer Camp festival, they organized a plogging event that marked a special collaboration between the Gombasek festival organizers and the participants of the Slovak Eco Quality’s Green Triangle project. Both Gombasek and the young participants of the project aimed to leave the festival’s beautiful environment unspoiled and clean for the next year’s festival and for the future generations.
Given the significant environmental impact of a festival, the plogging event aimed to reduce this burden on the environment. The event started at 10 AM. After the opening and a brief introduction to the project, an energizer activity was held to stimulate the young participants, ensuring they had enough energy for the litter collection. Since everyone was tired on the festival’s closing day, a highly active and full-body energizer was chosen.
The event lasted until approximately 2 PM, although some participants continued collecting litter also beyond that time. By the end, the young people, adults, and children who joined this initiative managed to nearly completely clean the festival area. Hosting the event on the last day of the festival was a huge success, with 49 people participating and contributing to a more sustainable festival and environment. Throughout the event, people joined the plogging activity in waves, with new participants continuously arriving to contribute to the good cause, learning about individual sustainability actions and advocacy we can carry out, and also about the project, its donor, and more. The event started with 13 participants, but the good mood and noble goal attracted more and more people, growing the eco team steadily.
Some of the Green Triangle project participants collected litter around the gathering point, ensuring that everyone who wanted to join could get instructions and find their way. It was uplifting to see children joining the action too, as they are the future generation of eco active individuals. If they learn to love nature and how to protect their environment from a young age, they can become fantastic role models who can steer our world in a better direction.
The final event of the Green Triangle project was a resounding success, highlighting the power of community action and the importance of environmental stewardship. It was a fitting end to a project dedicated to promoting sustainability and environmental awareness, leaving a lasting impact on all who participated.
We would like to extend our special thanks to the municipality of Gombasek for making this event possible. A big thank you goes also to the festival organizers who supported and participated in the plogging and provided also trash bags. With so many volunteers and so much litter at the festival, the organization’s supplies needed refilling.
The plogging event in this setting was a great opportunity to share our environmental sustainability values, raise awareness on the green EU policies, involve public, festival organizers, city representatives, and young leaders and activists to encourage an ongoing collaboration and joint actions!
Thanks once again to everyone, and especially to Erasmus+ program which makes such amazing happenings possible.
