The regional activities of the WES Programme on Awareness Raising and Education for Sustainable Development for Sustainable Consumption or Water/NCWRs (HE-2b-REG, HE-3b-REG) concluded with the final online session on the 28th of May 2024.
The session provided the opportunity to the 8 participants to reflect on the whole process (as mentees) and share gainings and insights. The session was facilitated by Vicky Malotidi & Iro Alampei (WES NKE/MEdIES) who gave an overview and highlights from the 10-months long activity, while prof Scoullos (WES Team Leader) gave some last spotlights on some key aspects of the Mediterranean Strategy on ESD Action Plan towards 2030. He also pointed out that the new phase of the WES Project will be enriched with even more Activities dedicated to outreach and raising of awareness. This WES Activity could be presented in a nutshell:
- Assessment phase (through an online survey) August-October 2023
- Selection of case studies on awareness raising peojects and campaigns sust.consumption and cases on water topics, from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia and Turkey.
- 1st online plenary session, 15 participants (January 2024)
- Bilateral mentoring sessions (Ferbuary – March 2024) for an in-depth analysis of the participating cases (9) their contexts, approaches, challenges and achievements as well as the potential solutions & opportunities.
- Two webinars: on Effective Communication (23 April) and on the Methodology of zero waste campaign IAMCOCO (30 April).
- Final plennary session, 28 May
Effective Communication & Engagement (23 April)
Key take-aways:
Know well your audience/build a long-lasting relationship.
- Build on consistency, transparency, mutuality
- Use tailor-made messages
- Capitalize on assets.
- Use local trusted ‘ambassadors’
- Reach our/build a relationship with media/journalists
- What’s in it for me” question
Methodology of zero waste campaign IAMCOCO, 30 April
Key take aways:
- Communication by design
- A lot of planned media exposure
- Self regulated communication channels
- Personalised kits/ gadgets to motivate
- Regular visits for keeping them ‘on track’, ‘on the same page’
- Monitoring and evaluation
- Spread the message to celebrate the achievements!
It was so important to network, peer-exchange and get to know how similar organisations from our sub-region deal with similar issues.
Overall, it was a very useful and engaging process. I was inpired on how to build on and, at the same time, to improve my campaign. I am glad I took part!
The agendas, presentations and recordings of the webinars and plennary sessions can be found at the dedicated WES webpage: https://www.wes-med.eu/activities_type/he-2b-reg