Note: This text is addressed to my bubble of environmentally oriented friends and friends of friends and assumes the common ground that we all believe that we need more awareness or even changes in our lives and in our communities towards living more sustainable and in harmony with our environment (which for myself includes both humans and nature)
ENVolution – a blog/website about amazing inspiring environmental projects all over Europe?
Living in Copenhagen, I feel like it took me a year or even more to find all the awesome environmental projects that are going on here. And even living here longer I have friends approaching me, telling me about projects they just heard off. So, I was thinking I could share this knowledge with my surrounding so that others who are looking out for projects to volunteer in or to get inspired can have an overview right away.
Have you had that, that you are getting to know a project and you are super amazed by it and are thinking: wooow I wish there were so many more of these projects and more people would take such initiative! Good examples for me are the rooftop vegetable garden østergro or repair cafés. But why are these projects not everywhere? Why am I visiting Paris the other day and I am hearing there the town is just now having a test rooftop garden to try out if and how it works.
These projects are initiated by people, by groups, by individuals – by us. And to start these projects we have to get the idea and motivation to do so. We have to see that it is possible and feasible and what advantage it will bring to our community, the environment and ourselves. You are not missing something you can not imagine possible.
So how about inspiring and empowering by telling stories? Aren’t we all thriving to do something meaningful? But whatever that is, is hard to find out. We might be living in our bubbles where we are aware of many interesting projects. But not everyone is living, wants to live and can live in Copenhagens and Berlins. We are moving to these cities because we are searching for like-minded people and we want to be inspired. Wanting to find out what world we want to live in, what is possible and finding people to go this way with us. But we rarely go home to share what we learned. While many initiatives might need to be started in these creativity hotspots which attract even more creative people, imagine once the ideas are there, they could be shared with everyone all over Europe and maybe even further.
Right now, through our studies and travels, we have seen so much and meet so many people. How about sharing these experiences, thoughts and ideas while using and serving these networks? Sharing ideas for each other and for everyone else who is interested.
In my surrounding, I can for sure feel the interest of people outside my environmental friends bubble on environmental topics and initiatives. Sometimes it is a shy curiosity, not being sure what to expect, sometimes it is interest but pessimism – isn’t anything going downhill anyways and we are screwed? No, we are not – look at all these wonderful initiatives where people take action, take their future in their own hands and work together to fix what was messed up beforehand. This is such a chance for communities to question, reflect and reinvent themselves and to grow closer together.
What it takes to believe though is that it will be me and you doing this transition. And for this we must feel powerful, we have to feel supported, we need people to join us. And first of all, we need courage to do the first step, which is admitting to ourselves that we would like to see a change in our community and our lives, trying to identify what this change could be and then communicate it.
To empower people, I thought a website where we share great projects we stumble over and that inspired us would be a great start. Telling each other stories and portraying individuals who take actions. I would absolutely love, if it is somehow communicated that it is normal people like you and me who start something up and that anyone can do something because personally that is something I deal with and I feel a lot of people might – of feeling just too unimportant or powerless that anyone would like our idea or that our idea would have any impact. Best example is this homepage – if I would not have gotten such positive feedback and empowerment by my surrounding I would have buried that idea, myself being my hardest judge.
If you see yourself becoming part of ENVolution, sharing and contributing you are highly encouraged to do so. That would be amazing! Imagine each of us even just shares one amazing story..
We always just dream as far as our personal horizon goes – so let’s broaden each other’s :).
And: Done is better than perfect!
Note: This text is addressed to my bubble of environmentally oriented friends and friends of friends and assumes the common ground that we all believe that we need more awareness or even changes in our lives and in our communities towards living more sustainable and in harmony with our environment (which for myself includes both humans and nature)
ENVolution – a blog/website about amazing inspiring environmental projects all over Europe?
Living in Copenhagen, I feel like it took me a year or even more to find all the awesome environmental projects that are going on here. And even living here longer I have friends approaching me, telling me about projects they just heard off. So, I was thinking I could share this knowledge with my surrounding so that others who are looking out for projects to volunteer in or to get inspired can have an overview right away.
Have you had that, that you are getting to know a project and you are super amazed by it and are thinking: wooow I wish there were so many more of these projects and more people would take such initiative! Good examples for me are the rooftop vegetable garden østergro or repair cafés. But why are these projects not everywhere? Why am I visiting Paris the other day and I am hearing there the town is just now having a test rooftop garden to try out if and how it works.
These projects are initiated by people, by groups, by individuals – by us. And to start these projects we have to get the idea and motivation to do so. We have to see that it is possible and feasible and what advantage it will bring to our community, the environment and ourselves. You are not missing something you can not imagine possible.
So how about inspiring and empowering by telling stories? Aren’t we all thriving to do something meaningful? But whatever that is, is hard to find out. We might be living in our bubbles where we are aware of many interesting projects. But not everyone is living, wants to live and can live in Copenhagens and Berlins. We are moving to these cities because we are searching for like-minded people and we want to be inspired. Wanting to find out what world we want to live in, what is possible and finding people to go this way with us. But we rarely go home to share what we learned. While many initiatives might need to be started in these creativity hotspots which attract even more creative people, imagine once the ideas are there, they could be shared with everyone all over Europe and maybe even further.
Right now, through our studies and travels, we have seen so much and meet so many people. How about sharing these experiences, thoughts and ideas while using and serving these networks? Sharing ideas for each other and for everyone else who is interested.
In my surrounding, I can for sure feel the interest of people outside my environmental friends bubble on environmental topics and initiatives. Sometimes it is a shy curiosity, not being sure what to expect, sometimes it is interest but pessimism – isn’t anything going downhill anyways and we are screwed? No, we are not – look at all these wonderful initiatives where people take action, take their future in their own hands and work together to fix what was messed up beforehand. This is such a chance for communities to question, reflect and reinvent themselves and to grow closer together.
What it takes to believe though is that it will be me and you doing this transition. And for this we must feel powerful, we have to feel supported, we need people to join us. And first of all, we need courage to do the first step, which is admitting to ourselves that we would like to see a change in our community and our lives, trying to identify what this change could be and then communicate it.
To empower people, I thought a website where we share great projects we stumble over and that inspired us would be a great start. Telling each other stories and portraying individuals who take actions. I would absolutely love, if it is somehow communicated that it is normal people like you and me who start something up and that anyone can do something because personally that is something I deal with and I feel a lot of people might – of feeling just too unimportant or powerless that anyone would like our idea or that our idea would have any impact. Best example is this homepage – if I would not have gotten such positive feedback and empowerment by my surrounding I would have buried that idea, myself being my hardest judge.
If you see yourself becoming part of ENVolution, sharing and contributing you are highly encouraged to do so. That would be amazing! Imagine each of us even just shares one amazing story..
We always just dream as far as our personal horizon goes – so let’s broaden each other’s :).
And: Done is better than perfect!