Civic leaders from 40 countries gathered in Kosovo to erase the massive waste problem
Civic led international environmental movement “Let’s Do It!” hold a conference on the 6th – 9th of February, in Pristina, Kosovo to tackle the illegal waste problem together with representatives from more than 40 countries. Let’s Do It Mediterranean! team gathered on the 6th to discuss future steps.
LDIM team started working on Mediterranean clean-up day already in 2012, today we have representatives in almost all Mediterranean countries!
The movement, which has grown in just five years from a single country action into a global network in over 110 different countries, has enjoyed a rapid increase in size through the World Cleanup 2012 and World Cleanup 2013 joint actions. Consisting of individual cleanup actions organised by network members all over the world, the number of volunteers has grown from 50,000 people in Estonia to nine million volunteers around the globe in five years.
LDIM day on 6th of February where many from our team gathered to discuss the future steps of LDIM!
Part of the core team planning the seminar: Agni, Omar, Robert, Faisal and Jaka.
The annual Clean World Conference is taking place outside of Estonia, the birthplace of the “Let’s Do It!” movement, for the first time. “Let’s Do It!” teams from all over the world annually gather at this conference to share experience, present their success-stories, find new motivation and listen and learn from innovators in the civic and environmental field. During the workshops, solutions for various problems concerning waste are being discussed and new ambitious plans are being created.
“Humanity is about dreams. The dream of a clean planet is a big one. Perhaps too big to be taken seriously, unless there are many who share it. In times of record-breaking levels of atmospheric CO2 and massive destruction to our planets ecosystem, it takes courage to dream of a completely clean and green environment,” said Mr. Rainer Nõlvak, the initiator of Let’s Do It! movement and the Chief Motivator of Let’s Do It! World Cleanup 2014.
“It takes yet more to plan and execute and actually get the tide turned – this can only be done together. How to attract a critical mass in your country, how to change the mindset of people – this is what the Kosovo conference is about,” Nõlvak added.
“Kosovo was not involved in any international decision making processes regarding the environment. Finally the debates and more structured work has started in environmental matters, which was not the case before. We see the whole civic scene becoming activated thanks to “Let’s Do It!” actions. People experienced that changes can be made and this has boosted new initiatives. Naturally we want to promote our country as well,” commented Mr. Luan Hasanaj, the coordinator of Let’s Do It! Kosovo. “Let’s Do It!” is the biggest civic movement in Kosovo and last year 132,000 volunteers came to clean up illegal trash from the streets and nature.
Faisal in action.To join Let’s Do It Mediterranean check who’s the contact for LDIM in your country or write straight to our main coordinator Faisal Sadegh (faisalsadegh [at] gmail.com). Join our clean-up in 10th-11th May 2014!
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Photos and illustrative materials are available for the media in the Let’s Do It! World Cleanup Mediabank. The conference programme can be seen here!
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