A great example of how individuals can change the world
I learned about this amazing project while visiting the annual conference PINC in Holland. It is a grassroot movement from Estonia, one of the three Baltic states.
A small group of young people wanted to do something about the incredible amount of illegal waste being dumped in forests everywhere in the country. Mostly they wondered why no one seemed to care. They wanted to solve the problem, but also get people engaged in solving it.
Thus, the project “Let’s do it” was born. Four people decided that they would clean up the mess, in just ONE day, motivating a large portion of the population to participate in a day of cleaning up the forests. Only three full time employees managed to motivate 600 volunteers to participate in the project. They mapped the whole waste with help of GPS and cell phones. Celebrities participated in a campaign – for free! And 50′000 volunteers helped clean up all the mapped territories in just one single day. 10′000 tons of waste were gathered in one single day. Wow. It is truly amazing what people can achieve when they work together for a common cause!
What I like most about this project is that not only did the Estonians get rid of their illegal waste in forests, but they have started an ongoing dialogue about sustainability and ecology that every single Estonian at least heard about, but more likely participated in.
June 18th, 2009 at 8:50 am
In 5 hours?
…
I INSTANTLY want to have such a campaign running in Germany…