Resting on their laurels? Not a question for the ASAP Team

With most of the project outputs published and eight month remaining until the end of the project, one could think that the ASAP Team would take a breather to contemplate about the job well done. Yet, quite the opposite is true and that not only because some activities have been planned back-to-back. It is mainly because project partners see the many, many, opportunities for cooperation, for action, for transformation and feel the urgency to start bringing their plans into reality.

One example of such cross-sectorial cooperation and, at the same time, implementation of education-related goals of SK NOC’s Sustainability Strategy, was „Ekoworkshop Camp“ jointly organised on 22-24 April 2022 by European Youth Olympic Festival 2022, SK NOC and an environmental education NGO “Planet Lover”. The Camp was a pinnacle of a long-term project focused on raising awareness and educating high school students in the field of environmental sustainability through a series of regional workshops. In these workshops, students not only gained the necessarily knowledge, but also had the opportunity to put the freshly acquired information and skills into practice while developing sustainability measures for their peers who will participate as athletes to the European Youth Olympic Festival in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia. The “Ekoworkshop Camp” was an opportunity for them to come together, get to know each other, learn from excellent lecturers and experts and that all underpinned by movement and physical activities in nature.

Shortly after the “Ekoworkshop Camp”, another piece of the ASAP project “puzzle” has been put in place. Hosted by HU NOC, the ASAP Team met in Budapest on 25-27 April 2022 for its sixth meeting to work on the remaining project outputs (Sustainability Communications Cheat Sheet and Case Studies), plan project activities, and exchange information, good practices and experiences in implementing sustainability in their respective organisations. Education and cooperation with schools, carbon footprint measurement and sustainability at sport events were the main “implementation” topics on the agenda. True to the underlying values of the ASAP project, the sessions were open, participative, and cooperative with fantastic guests sharing their know-how and experiences. The ASAP Team meeting was followed be two days of bilateral "mentee-mentor" exchanges between HU NOC and FI NOC. 

The intensive “cooperation and exchange” period came to its temporary end on 4-6 May 2022 after a bilateral visit of CZ NOC to DOSB, only to be resumed in the second half of June when SK NOC will visit DK NOC for their second mentor-mentee visit and when the whole ASAP Team will convene in Bratislava for its sevenths meeting.