Topics of the day

• The Journey of a Jeans
• Consumption and its´ Environmental Impact 
• Environmental Impacts of Dams and River Modifications

-water footprint of a jeans
-working in groups- develop educational methods to raise awareness about jeans production and water consumption
-pranz
-River as Ecosystems. River Basin Management
-disparities among social classes (game and reflection)

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. (John Donne)

The powerful sunshine made the 5th day of the training to start with a very good energy. After a short warm-up, Tania offered us an introduction into the topic of water foorprint of jeans production, by emphasising not only the huge amount of water needed in order to produce a so common pair of jeans, but also about the environmental and social issues that this industry brings in the areas where each of the production phase rezides.

Once being aware of the environmental, social and economical impacts of the jeans production: big consume of resources (water consumption), transportation (CO2 emissions), unfair working conditions (child labor, bad payed), water and soil pollution (use of pesticides, colorants) we discuss about alternatives to reduce the impacts of the jeans production, such as, replacing the jeans with trousers made by cellulose based materials or by choosing to buy jeans made by organic produced cotton and not least to recycle…

The idea of working again in small groups was warmly welcomed, so that we divided into five groups in order to develop and discuss educational methods that we can further use to raise awareness and teach others (children or adults) about water footprint. Take a look at the results and feel free to adapt and use them!

„I am here because I want to change my life and I feel privileged because I have the chance to be here to discuss about global problems” (Iancu)

„We are all sitting on the humanity boat, but we have different tools to go forward.” (Benjamin)

The conclusion of the day was that we are all interconnected and the decisions we make locally have a high impact globally and as we have the privilege to choose, we have the duty to be responsible for our decisions and take action to diminish the disparities between …