I‘ve participated in a lot of exchange programs and various training courses for young people, but Erasmus+ project „Act on it!”, that took part in March 18-26, Poronin, Willa Austryjok, was by far the best exchange I‘ve ever taken part in and it was my sixth time. I tasted Slovak national dish halušky, danced Polish ethnic dances, attend every kind of workshops, laughed, smiled, bonded with people and I will never ever forget them. It was an unforgettable experience, that had a huge impact on my understanding of the world and it’s problems.
I think differently now. Before the exchange I never paid attention to pollution that surrounds me, I walked by trash and rubbish like it was nothing. I didn’t care about Ivis lake, that is in the centre of my town, and three years ago it was one of the most polluted lakes in Lithuania. My apathy was based on the thinking that somebody else will just clean everything up and everything will be alright. I was so, so wrong about that. In Erasmus+ project ‘Act on it!’ I learnt that I am the change, not somebody else, and that I have to act on it, try to fix the problems we, the human race, created.
One of the workshops took part in Zakopane. We were working in groups and we had to interview people about the global, local problems, their solutions, also about eco-friendly lifestyle. Moreover, we had to take photos, which contained eco-friendly or not so eco-friendly behaviour. To sum up, we had to find out if we could call Zakopane as a ‘green neighbourhood’.
The results of our group were kind of shocking. We saw a lot of kiosks that sold real fur and leather, a lot of trash on the ground, in the water, even plastic bags in the trees. Also we saw that trash was not segregated, but we were doing the research only in the old town. When we asked people if they recycle, only two out of eight said that they do. Most of the people get around by a car and those, that get around by public transport, bicycles or feet were underage. But I couldn’t say that there weren’t any eco-friendly behaviour. We saw a lot of garbage trucks that were collecting garbage.
That made me think about how people are destroying our dear Earth. We already have a hole in the ozone layer and ice caps are melting and some of the animals are almost extinct because somebody wanted to have a fur coat. We should just stop for a minute and think about what we are doing and is it really worth it. Our actions have consequences. And if we will keep polluting our home and our land, destroying forests that make us oxygen that we breathe, we will make ourselves an extinct species that once lived on Earth.
I thought about that a lot and I decided to live a more eco-friendly life. Now I started to recycle, take a shower instead of a bath, go everywhere by feet. I’m going to try to convince people that its time to stop poisoning our environment and that its time to pay our debt to Earth, that we hurt so badly.
