BLOG DIARY - ROMANIA

On 27th of March, here at Tulcea, among other countries we celebrated Eart Hour.
    The activity was a partnership between Waste Management Center, Tulcea City Hall and Children’s Palace, and despite the cold weather everything went smoothly.
    The activity started with a questionnaire regarding citizens knowledges about WWF’s Earth Hour which was made by our  volunteers and students from Children’s Palace. The responses were suprising. The people were more informed than last year and they wanted to be a part in the project.
    The main activities that we did were: astronomical observation when the lights were on and off, concerts with artist’s from Tulcea and a band from which a member is a volunteer of Waste Management Center, a ballet show made by the children from dancing circle at Children’s Palace.
    The biggest surprise was the big number of people that joined our activity. If last year we had about 200 people , this year we had almost 1000.  
     Here are some pictures from the activity:
         

         

         

         

         

On World Water Day we organized a trip to the Tulcea water plant to learn how it works, and what are the techonologies and processess used for treathing the water that we drink. The program marked the importance of the day, and had presentations made by the pupils and a role play made by childrens . The activity started with the reading of the Romanian Water Administration Director  message.
    From the activity resulted that a clean water offers us a chance to a healthier life, but the quality of life reflects the behaviour of a nation regardin it, and of course of everyone of us. The relations betwen man and water, between the clean water and the health of a human, a family, a community or a society is closely linked: the human health is influenced by consuming a high quality water; in the same time, an  adequate behaviour regarding water influence the water quality.
    Moreover the high water quality raises the  life quality of nation,because a high quality water prove the respect that the nation had regarding water along history and, in the same time, makes it responsible and  help them protect it in the future, by using a long lasting politics. In the end everyone promised that they will be responsible with the water and that they will protect it.

           

           

           

           

In popular traditional culture, the customs have a special place, because the entire life of a human being, his work during the year and his other preocupations were influenced by customs. In Romanian folclore, some of the customs are still alive and they have kept their rituals.
    We will present only 2 of those traditions which we celebrated.
Dragobetele, Dochias’s son, Valentines Day , is celebrated on 24th of February, a day that marks the begining of the Spring, the revival of the nature. Maye this is why,unlike the gentle Saint Valentine, Dragobetele was shown like a handsmone man, lively. The legend is old from Dacian’s times , when he represented the mithological divinity like Eros or Cupid and he was serving the wedding of all animals in the Heaven.
   As the years passed, Romanians transformed it in the love protector, in this way the tradition was expanded to people, and the men’s were meeting women’s so that they love will last for the whole year.
    Occasion of joy, Dragobetele represents one of the oldest Romanian tradition, and those who knows the legend of Dragobete celebrate it on February 24th .
    Here are some pictures with activity made by the pupils from "Grigore Antipa" school:
           

           

    Martisor is another Romanian traditional holiday that celebrates the arrival of Spring. With this occasion men offer to women martisoare, the symbol of good and welfare. The tradition is 8000 years old and it was discovered in Mehedinti area, and the legend says that the womens were wearing at that time coins and smal rocks tied with 2 strings, one red and one white.
    The colors of the martisor are explained differently. One legend says that white represents the winter, and red- spring. Also there are associations like white-purity, red-passion, or the fight between good and evil. But the exact origin of the martisor string was lost.

    As every year we make an exhibition with martisoare made from recycled materials and you can see some of them here:
             

             

             

             

On February 2nd we celebrated the World Wetlands Day.This Year theme was "Caring for wetlands – an answer to climate change". We all know that the climate changes are a serious threat to our world, and in this part of Romania the desertification process started.And the wetland ecosystem of Danube Delta is a good point to start to fight against this problem.
  We made our action in Partnership with Tulcea City Hall, Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve Authority, Environmental Protection Agency Tulcea, and we invited to participate all the schools from the City. Due to the heavy snow we weren't able to invite people from the county.Also we had a special guest. A teacher from Spain who came in Tulcea to learn more about our schools projects.




  After the opening speeches held by our guests, the volunteers from waste Management Information and Education Center made 2 role plays.
  First of them was a wetland summit with representatives from Danube Delta Biosphere Authority, lakes from the county , a WWF member and of course a Ramsar member.The idea of the role play was to teach pupils the history of the Ramsar Convention and it's role in protecting our beautiful  Danube Delta.



  During the role play we invited and old guest, Oachi the frog. Last year the participants made promises regarding the protection of wetlands, and this year he came to see if the children respected their promises. And of course they respected what they promised.

  The second role play was case study called "The chronicles of an announced apocalypse". The humankind was always described as a being that love light and heat, other times he was praised for his amazing capacity to adapt. Now  it's the time to see how true is the first affirmation and we deserve the second praise.



  The main idea of the study case was to reflect about the changes that human kind made to the climate and if we don't stop and try to fight against it soon we may disappear.In the end we promoted Franny Armstrong's documentary called "The age of stupid". The movie take place  in 2055 on a planet Earth abandoned and where  life is threatened by the climate changes and natural disasters. The survivor of this apocalyptic scenario asks himself, looking back at the beginning of the new millennium, why the human kind didn't do anything to stop this.



  At the end of the activity, after a quiz  every participant received a diploma.




  And because the action took place at our new Aquarium we couldn't left without visiting it.

The first part of the project planning was to gather the team. At the beginning of November we contacted the schools and they sent us pupils to work with. After meeting them, teachers gathered and together we started to write the project.

  According to the plan we started the project by making questionnaires to the people who live near the park, regarding the project. We made a brainstorming with the pupils in order to make the questionnaire. After we made the questionnaire the pupils went into the park and made them.




  Next we are presenting the results:
1.Do you like how the park look now?
Yes 23     No 77

2. Do you think it would be useful an ecological reconstruction campaign?
Yes 93     No 7

3.Would like to be a part of this campaign?
Yes 43     No 57

4. Do you think you can keep the park "green"?
Yes 89     No 11

5.Do you think that reconstructing the park we can improve our ecological footprint?
Yes 79     No 21

6. Do you know what is the ecological footprint?
Yes 63     No 37

7. If you don't , can we expect you at our headquarter to teach you?
Yes 74     No 26



  We interviewed 100 people who live near the park, pupils that learns here, and people who just come here and enjoys the nature.

  Also, in December, according to the Romania tradition, we realized Eco Santa where children singed carols and received gifts.




  During January we calculated the ecological footprint of each member from the project team at the beginning of the project. At the end we will do that again and we will see if the project help the pupils improve their ecological footprint.At the end of project we will present their results.


  Now we are preparing to celebrate "World Wetlands Day"  on February 2nd in partnership with Danube Delta Biosphere Reservation Authority.