07.06.2023.
An international meeting of eco-schools, which has been organised for more than three decades by the association Lijepa naša, brought together the representatives of 150 schools. The initiative was endorsed by the deputy director of the Fund, Mirko Budiša, together with the head of the Sector for special categories of waste at the Fund, Zvonimir Majić.“The adoption of various legislative acts is necessary to achieve environmental objectives. However, initiatives like this one are what puts regulations to good use giving the environment due importance and making it mainstream. Through their programmes, eco-schools encourage from the start the children and the young to creatively solve the challenges we’re facing today, and they teach them to think differently about the resources we have,” said deputy director Budiša in his opening speech, announcing that in late June the Fund would start the call for proposals for civil society organisations for co-financing environmental educational projects.
The importance of education of the young was emphasized by Zvonimir Majić, the head of the sector at the Fund, who said that various promotional and educational campaigns were continuously implemented and were well received by the public. Moreover, in cooperation with associations, various seabed and speleological objects clean-up drives were organised. Majić also touched upon the good cooperation that the association Lijepa naša and the Fund had had since 2004 on the mentioned and various other programmes.
In addition to the verbal presentation of 36 eco schools and a poster exhibition, Predrag Korica, PhD, from the Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund and national programme coordinators of Eco-School in Slovenia Gregor Cerar and Jasmina Mlakar, shared their knowledge and experience with the participants.
As part of the meeting, the president of the association, Mirko Ruščić, presented charters and green flags for the renewal and acquisition of the status of an International Eco-School.
