MANO EUROPA launches new project which will bring even more environmental education for youth!

New Year MANO EUROPA team entered with the new Erasmus+ KA2 project “PLANSHIELD” which aims to raise awareness about the worrying situation of single-use plastic and provide innovative educational tools for youth workers to work on this issue in their organisations. The project follows the strategy of the SDGs in several areas, such as quality youth education, climate action and responsible consumption and production.

Numerous international agreements on plastics and plastic pollution have been established to address and reduce their impact on global economies, societies and natural environments. These include the Basel Convention and its amendment in 2019, UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea), MARPOL 73/78 (International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships), GESAMP (Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection), the UN Global Partnership on Marine Litter, the G7 Ocean Plastics Charter and the EU Plastics Strategy. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has clearly overtaken the perceived threat of plastic pollution, leading to a sudden shift in the hierarchy of values, where health is seen as a value despite care for the environment, which shows a clear decline in its perceived importance. The withdrawal in various national and state agreements that set environmental sustainability as the cornerstone, followed by the shift in waste production and management to ensure health needs. A long-term shift in this hierarchy of values is likely to cause “damage” to environmental threats.

It is therefore imperative to rethink our environmental attitudes towards the use of plastic, encouraging sustainable behaviors, breaking old habits and adopting new ones. To achieve this, it is important to work from the base of the youth system, from the future generations, where behaviors are being created and civic attitudes are formed for life, so it is of great need to create appropriate materials, tools and instruments for youth workers to work on this issue, in a playful and non-formal way to better reach their young people and create an impact through educational activities.

During the 24 months of the project duration we plan to create 3 educational resources (a board game, a multimedia game, a training plan) to address the issue of environmental sustainability, especially in relation to the danger of single-use plastics for our planet.

Additionally, during the project we will train 25 youth workers in the application of game-based learning and gamification methodologies to teach serious subjects in an entertaining way.

Lastly, the project and its activities will foster the development of green skills in 100 young people through game-based learning and will raise awareness among youth professionals and young people about the danger to our planet if we do not take appropriate measures to protect it.

In January 2024 consortium of the project met in Valladolid [Spain] in order to plan in detail the development of all activities and tasks leading to the creation of the main output. During this meeting, brainstorming took place and decisions were made to establish a clear and structured work schedule, in terms of tasks assigned and content to be created.

The project is implemented together with Club Deportivo Chañe [Spain], DamaSistem [Turkey], Fundacion Eusebio Sacristan [Spain] and PESG [Croatia].

The PLANSHIELD project is co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union.