According to various world organizations that work in the field of climate change and environmental protection – Macedonia will be one of the countries in the World that will be seriously affected by climate change and global warming.
This is why we prepared and realized a raising awareness campaign that describes different kind of activities and measures that everyone of us can achieve….everyday. And the results: improved quality of living, protected environment, and saving of money.
Below you will find what weere our goals and objectives:
a) To significantly raise the level of awareness of the community, providing information about climate change and its negative effects (sustainable development principles included), presenting activities and policies, and emphasizing some of the key responsibilities for adaptation, and mitigation of climate change impacts, while targeting school teachers and their students, individuals and families. We are sure that targeting the school teachers is a great strategy, because we will “train” them how to show and teach the children at young age how to protect the environment and in the same time how to improve their future quality of life. Disregarding the project’s time frame, even when this project is finished, the teachers could introduce this concept to every upcoming generation, thus making this project sustainable on its own. Targeting the individuals and families can contribute to achievement of higher living standard. How? Well, by introducing the “tips” that we assembled we can contribute towards lowering the everyday costs of every individual or family. Also we would have an impact by making us visible through strong media attention (flyers, brochures, internet, workshops, etc.), thus involving (affecting) as much people as possible.
b) To make citizens change their life style: all of the citizens should be more aware of environment-friendly lifestyles and consuming patterns for reduction of GHG gasses and to experiment them in daily life as to reduce their carbon emissions and consequently change their behavior (life style). We would like to emphasize that we will have a strong “paper” campaign, with different kind of tips for improvement printed on flyers that will be distributed on various places, for bigger impact. These flyers will be distributed several times per week, so depending on the project’s time frame we will have around 15 000 flyers distributed per month. The project time frame is 8 months, so around 120 000 flyers will be distributed around the capital city, Skopje. This way we gain the needed impact on people, this way we can raise their awareness. The more the people see them, the more they will remember them and act according to them. This way we can build a solid platform for the next stages of this complex issue, climate change and its effects.
c) To provide advice and examples of best practice of how to communicate adaptation to climate change, and mitigation through reducing emissions. All of this would be done by realizing the extra “classes” (informal education) for the elementary students and teachers, workshops and media material (flyers, brochures, internet, etc.)
– The main goal is to create a community that is well informed about climate change and thus able to make globally responsible choices. The challenge is to engage people in the climate change actions (mitigation measures) in order to break down some barriers that exist and to connect people to the fact that their attitude and lifestyle plays in causing the problem and that they should be involved in these actions towards solutions. The table below (“Tomorrow’s Climate – Today’s Challenge”) highlights the shifts in attitudes that need to be achieved in order to face the challenge of engaging with people.
| Where We’re At | Where We Want To Be | |
| People aren’t clear what causes climate change and don’t understand what needs to be done to stop it. | People understand climate change and what is causing it. | |
| People think that climate change won’t affect them personally. | People see the impact it may have on their lives. | |
| People don’t include climate change as an important issue when making decisions. | People feel empowered and positive about stopping climate change. | |
| Climate change is a depressing and negative issue. | People include climate change when making their decisions and embrace the positive changes that result. |
Table 1: Shifting Of Attitudes
The messages that need to be clearly communicated are:
- That climate change is real and the effects are long-term
- It is possible to adapt to the impacts climate change will bring, and mitigate the causes
- There are real risks to the “do nothing” option
- Make people realize that this is a process that lasts, and needs our attention (actions & means, measurements).
The mechanisms that will be used include:
- Promoting credible source of information
- Preparing and utilizing material on climate change and sustainable development
- Responding to possible questions and requests for information from the community
- Proactive outreach to community groups and individuals
All of the above mentioned activities andmeasures were completely realized. target group(s) were: population from 18+, and children at age of 11-13 years old.
The results that were achieved, motivated us to continue with this kind of activities, regarding climate change and its issues.
