Promoting Lasting Alternatives through Sustainability Training In Communities

We applied for this project with the aim of developing our actions around sustainable development and embedding these activities and initiatives into a global project that goes beyond the local sphere. We had noticed a growing demand from the public for the inclusion of environmental initiatives at their level. We had also observed the need to strengthen, among our audiences, the sense of European citizenship, solidarity, and interculturality. Carrying out this project with a foreign country, addressing intrinsically personal themes (sorting, mobility, food, etc.), reinforces and solidifies the idea that we are united and that our differences are our strength when facing shared problems. In addition to addressing the theme of sustainable development in a general way, this project serves to demystify the foreign and to break down barriers in our rural communities.

By implementing this project, we aimed to reach our local audiences, consisting of people of all ages living in rural areas, on the topic of sustainable development. Our primary mission was to raise awareness and foster a discussion around these issues, in order to encourage the public to integrate these practices into their daily lives. Additionally, we wanted to observe how the same theme could be approached in two places differing in culture and geography. Indeed, the French partner operates on the coast, while the Austrian partner works in a mountainous region. We anticipated that showing these two areas, particularly affected by climate change, working together towards a common environmental goal, would be a catalyst for lasting changes in the daily lives of our residents and social partners.

As part of this project, we focused primarily on occasional activities, both raising awareness and encouraging direct action from our audiences. Our actions were numerous and developed throughout the project to ensure that the message of sustainable development was rooted in our communities.We have organized awareness, information and education workshops; We organized cooking workshops, soft mobility outings, conferences, beach cleanups, recycling center visits, upcycling and repair workshops, homemade cleaning product creations, cross-border visits between professionals, and integrated elements of this project into our other events over the course of the two years.

For each partner, the concrete achievements are the various workshops we conducted throughout the project, which our audiences could join. The results observed today are that, even after the project’s completion, professionals and the public are suggesting or requesting the inclusion of environmental and sustainable development aspects in new activities. As this project was much more focused on doing and sharing knowledge, rather than creating for observation, we do not have many deliverable or tangible objects, but rather a shift in mindset from our audiences who now integrate sustainable development into their daily lives. Indeed, the tangible outcomes support these statements, as they are the results of these workshops, such as composters, vegetable gardens, and lamps made from items destined to become waste.