My participation in the Tunza Eco-generation Ambassadors programme as regional Ambassador began exactly one year ago. It's time to take stock.

I have published more than 20 reports on various topics on the Tunza platform. It helped me to develop my written communication skills, to gain new knowledge of ecology in the course of preparation of my own reports and reading reports of my colleagues. 

I want to thank all the eco-ambassadors and mentors for the feedback I received on my articles last year. I am pleased to know that I am a part of such a large, friendly and responsible community.

Throughout the year I tried to involve as many people as possible in our community. Regularly published posts and articles on eco-topics in social networks. However, I must admit that while the Internet is a way to involve young people in environmental issues in Russia leaves much to be desired. 

The most important thing in 2018, I believe the implementation of the project of separate garbage collection in my school.  The school, where I studied for the last 2 years, is considered to be advanced, innovative, but there was no such important mechanism as separate garbage collection. By joining forces with the guys in the class, as well as with the graduate of our school - Adil Shakirova - student-ecologist of Moscow state University, we managed to introduce at the end of 2018 separate garbage collection.

We bought the containers ourselves, signed them, pasted leaflets at the school, and held a meeting at which we told the students of our school about the innovation. Difficulties in the implementation of our idea inside the school did not arise, the guys themselves supported us. But there were difficulties associated with the removal of garbage, as well as the actions of cleaners. The company with which we initially agreed on this, was not punctual enough, violated the terms of garbage collection. But it's all right now. We were able to agree on the clarity of compliance with the terms of removal of garbage collected by us. We also managed to convey to the cleaners the understanding that it is impossible to mix in one pile the garbage collected by us separately. 

The most important event of this summer for me as Ambassador tunz was participation in the youth exchange program of students in ecology — RYEP (Russia Youth Exchange Program).  I would like to Express my gratitude to my dear colleague Kushal Naharki for the letter of recommendation he wrote to the organizing Committee of this program. 

In this report, I want to briefly describe the programme and its results.

RYEP, or Russia Youth Environmental Program, is an educational exchange program that has been conducted by PH International since 2016. The term "exchange" will not be quite correct, because the program is one-sided — in the United States go representatives of Russian youth, but the Americans in Russia on the program RYEP can not get. In total, there are two shifts — in July and August, each with 20 participants, each shift lasts four weeks.

What the program is dedicated to

RYEP, as its name suggests, is dedicated to ecology and sustainable development. This means that during the program you will discuss a lot of current problems related to the environmental situation in different countries, visit various institutions — universities, farms, etc., where they try to solve existing problems and prevent the emergence of new ones.

Work on the program we started long before the trip to the States. Viewing lectures, commenting, answering questions, formulating the concept of the project — that's what you have to do "at home". Such tasks are important, because it is better to enter into the course of things and allow you to understand what is waiting for the program.

Most of our assignments were at Dartmouth College. There it was necessary to hold a 10-15 minute presentation on two of the lectures viewed before the trip. This presentation is made in a team of 5 people who choose a topic (two lectures from a set before the trip — there will be a table in google docs).

The main task of the whole RYEP is an individual project that needs to be implemented upon return from the States. When you create it, you can team up with someone from the group, but the idea, the plan should come from you.  

The project should be local (at your school/University) or global — for example, an educational Internet project. In General, it is better to imagine it before the trip, because in the States there will not be much time to bring the project to mind. In General, the program for the creation of the project is given a few days. In our case, the schedule was as follows:

July 2 — analysis of the theme of ecology and sustainable development, in which it was necessary to create a project; a small brainstorm.

July 4 and 5 — tete-a-tete project review: 15-minute consultation with Dartmouth College coordinators about the project. At such consultations, it will be possible to talk in a calm atmosphere about what is already on the project plans, what you can come up with, consider the strengths and weaknesses of ideas.

July 6 — by this day you need to make SMART goals, a list of goals for the project that meet certain criteria.  

At the same time July 6 almost entirely allocated for the creation of the project. Presentations, text, speech lasting up to 7 minutes — all this should be thought out on this day. As I mentioned above, it is desirable to do all this before and devote time to rehearsals, but not everyone does it.

July 7 — the day of the presentations. The time limit is hard — 10 minutes for each, 7 for speech, 3 for "question and answer". It is not difficult if everything is prepared and rehearsed. Answers to tricky questions should also be thought out in advance.

 

Of course, to create a project in a few days is problematic, however, I can assure you, if there are at least some ideas before the trip, in Dartmouth they are quickly transformed into a full-fledged project with goal setting, time-lines and advantages — future arguments in discussion with the administration of institutions (if in the course of the project it is needed).

It is important to keep in mind that at the beginning of December of the same year it will be necessary to present the results of the work done on the project at the conference of graduates of the program. It may not be completely ready, but its main objectives must be met.

Then, after Dartmouth, in Vermont (and new Hampshire), we visited farms, businesses related to environmental issues in one way or another. It was an enterprise for the processing of waste (CSWD), farm (farm Loreo, farm Severn), colleges, etc. There we were told in detail what kind of object we visit, how it is connected with the environment, what is happening inside, and how it helps to achieve sustainable development. And the emphasis is on sustainability, not on sustainability, although things are often interrelated. From these visits, I learned useful and important conclusions, I realized that it is necessary to implement, and that — no; and also understood the line that sometimes divides sustainability and environmental friendliness.

In conclusion, I would like to mention such classes as workshops. Not particularly long, interesting and rich classes that help well not only with the project, but also with its promotion, development, and in General in life. Examples of workshops — SMART goals, stakeholder analysis, "Social media for social changes" and so on. These are important lessons from which you can learn a lot of knowledge and gain new experience.

What I personally learned from the program

Now — about own experience. Thanks RYEP I:

1) became Even more interested in the topic of ecology and sustainable development. I started doing it tightly last year — the experience is relatively small, but RYEP gave me a strong push. Now I am even more motivated and interested to deal with this topic.

2) Got invaluable experience in time pressure: workshops, projects, quests — all this helps to plan your actions better with an eye to the end result, to manage time more competently.

3) Gained experience of teamwork. The program had a lot of activities in which you need to work in a team, often changed its members and their number. This helped to better adapt to different working conditions in the team.

4) Improved your English skills. Four weeks, of course, is not enough to make a breakthrough in the development of the language, but the constant stay in the English-speaking environment and the need to constantly communicate in this language breaks the language barrier.

5) Got an important skill of public speaking in English. I think this experience will be useful in my life more than once, and it was very important to try it on RYEP, as often the quality of performance can be critical for my future career.

6) Finally, I got the opportunity to look at American culture with my own eyes. I was convinced that the United States is a "melting pot", people here are completely different, but a similar ideology helps them to live peacefully in one country.

Here is a brief guide to the RYEP. 

I recommend everyone who wants to raise their awareness in the field of ecology and sdgs, to develop the skills of project implementation to find a similar internship program and pass it. 

In the next report, I will tell you more about the successfully implemented projects on the basis of American colleges, which we were introduced to during this program.

And Tunza want to say thank you for the great opportunity it provides!