Bilenkiv municipality is a front-line zone of the Zaporizhzhia region. Prior to the full-scale invasion, the priorities here were environmental education and the fight against natural garbage dumps. The war made its corrections but did not change the attitude towards the surrounding world. The information campaign, developed together with the experts of the Internews NGO, helped involve children in events and activities, thereby distracting them from hostilities and daily shelling.
"Nowadays, children are conscious, they perceive new knowledge better and are actively involved in what they are interested in. And since they learn remotely, they really have a lot of energy," said Anna Taran, head of the department of digital development and general organizational work of the municipality.
School teachers joined the actions of cleaning the Dnipro in the territory of Bilenkiv municipality, because as a result of the explosion of the Kakhovka HPP, the channel became shallow, and a lot of garbage appeared from underwater. They told the children about this and conducted lessons on the topic of ecology and the time of decomposition of garbage, its impact on the planet's ecosystem, and ecological consequences.
"At school, children together with teachers organized a fashion show. They made designer clothes from garbage (recycled materials). The children really liked it, because they could be creative, create something interesting. In the process, they understood that this paper tears and disintegrates faster, while polyethene is heavier and practically does not disintegrate, but on the contrary, becomes stronger over time. And if it is cut, it can injure and harm living organisms", - she continued.
Then it turned out that children return home and tell their parents about their experiences and new knowledge. And they begin to think about the need to sort garbage and treat it more responsibly.
Before the war, containers were installed in schools so that students could learn to sort garbage, as well as collect batteries.
"This year we held a children's drawing competition on the environmental theme "How children see our future", we want to make a calendar for the year 2024 with them, and the money we receive from the sale will be given either to the Armed Forces of Ukraine or to environmental initiatives of the municipality", - said Anna.
She also said that citizens receive humanitarian aid, which includes a lot of canned goods. Special containers were installed all over the municipality for collecting tin cans so that later they could be used to make trench candles. If at the beginning they made 100-200 candles, now there are about 1000 candles. Children and volunteers, ordinary citizens - everyone joins this process.
"Communication education is useful training and knowledge. The trainers explained very simply and clearly, the important things about information and interaction that seemed difficult to us. And then when we went through all the training events and the consultations began, we realized that everything was not so bad. They helped us systematize our communication activities and develop a communication plan, said Anna Taran.
Representatives of the Bilenkiv municipality owe a successful information campaign on responsible waste management to their participation in the U-LEAD Network for the exchange of experience "Creating a communication plan for changes in the municipality". Participation in the Network helped them to learn how to develop a communication plan, define the target audience and communicate with it.
We would like to remind you that representatives of 48 municipalities from all over Ukraine participated in the Experience Sharing Network "Creation of a Communication Plan for Changes in the Municipality", which underwent comprehensive communication training. The partner of "U-LEAD with Europe" in the implementation of this initiative was the public organization "Internews-Ukraine", whose experts conducted educational events and provided individual consultations to municipality specialists.