Community composting in adult environmental education

"<< Background >>The needs and goals for the staff of the participating organisations were to exchange experiences, ideas andbuild-up know-how on community composting. We aimed to draw inspiration from each other’s experience and to explorethe existing solutions to guarantee successful implementation of community composting. The cooperation should lead to knowledge gain on strategic planning for future work together with municipalities and associated partners. We also wanted to plan and set nextsteps to upscale the existing infrastructure. We planned to share the knowledge gathered with people who were interested in community composting, wanted to start their own community composting group or work in adult education and wanted to use community composting as a tool for environmental education as there is a lack of know-how and skills in implementing such facilities as well as in proper composting techniques.In existing community composting groups in some of the partner countries diversity was low. Therefore, the integration of strategies to reachdifferent target groups were supposed to help to tackle this challenge.<< Objectives >>We aimed to facilitate cooperation between three European environmental grassroots initiatives for the deepening of exchange and mutual support on the practice of community composting. By sharing approaches, experiences and good practices we aimed at improving conditions for on-site composting on a neighbourhood level in the cities Berlin, Prague and Vienna. We wanted to explore the necessary conditions to set up sustainable community composting sites in local municipal spaces, prospect different types of community composting and identify suitable locations including logistical, demographic and environmental characteristics. We intended to develop a transnational network and make the organisations key-actors in community composting education; to create learning spaces and provide both on-site and on-line training material on community composting. In cooperation with the associated partners we planned reach out to adult citizens with different backgrounds in age, gender, social status and adults with fewer learning opportunities and multipliers in the educational sector; to produce comprehensive learning materials for all people who want to start their own composting projects or need support in running their ongoing projects.<< Implementation >>PROJECT MANAGEMENT: -kick-off meeting and regular team meetings online to keep track of the project progress, set tasks and check results; -meeting minutes to document meeting results; -financial reporting to keep track of the resources already used and still available and the proper allocation of resources; -a GANTT-chart and other visual tools; - internal online-evaluation after each TPM and work package.EXCHANGE ON EXISTING COMMUNITY COMPOSTING ACTIVITIES: -research on the current situation of community composting in partner countries and beyond; -carrying out stakeholder interviews; -organising a kick-off event with stakeholders; -presenting research results to the partners; -draft a guideline to community composting; EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES ON COMMUNITY COMPOSTING INCLUDING STAFF TRAINING: - development of the workshop, workshop implementation including staff training; - evaluation including development of evaluation tools; - workshop implementation incl. evaluation; - synthesis of experiences, description and illustrationDISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES: visual identity; -ongoing communication; -publishing guideline; - promoting videos; -informing report for ministries; -final presentation; -translation of all materials<< Results >>CONCRETE OUTPUTS: A guide to community composting explaining everything needed to set up and run a community composting group; a workshop description for a workshop for community participants starting a new site; a manual for the compost caring team to be able to facilitate a composting group as well as the composting process; a document ""How to compost"" to answer common questions concerning the composting process itself; posters: one to give an overview of how to get started with community composting, one about how the composting process works and one to tell group members what belongs to the compost and what not; one promotional video with subtitles in 3 languages to be used on different communication channels of the partner organisations; an informing report for ministries and municipalities to be sent to decision makers in all partner countries to promote the practice of community composting; presentations about the situation of community composting in each of the partner countries.OTHER RESULTS: reach out to new target groups; contact with new stakeholder-groups (educational institutions and representatives of municipalities); formation of 3 new composting groups supported by the project;"