Great Project - Check it Out!

Project Name: The Healthy Living Bike Action Campaign
PCV/Counterpart: Rob Gregor (AZ4)/ Bridge to The Future Youth Union
Grant Type: Small Projects Assistance (SPA)
Grant Amount: $3529.75
Project Summary:
The Healthy Living Bike Action Campaign will encourage the people (and specifically the young people) of Ganja to live a healthier, more active and more environmentally friendly lifestyle. The main component will be conducting presentations at all of the schools in Ganja to teach participants about the importance of being environmentally aware, maintaining a healthy diet, exercising daily and not smoking; participants will be taught simple and specific ways to infuse healthier choices into their daily lives. Presenters will gain widespread attention as they will lead by example in employing bicycles as their primary means of transportation for the duration of the actions.
Goals and Objectives:
Goal 1: Promote a healthier lifestyle

• Objective 1: To encourage students to make healthy dietary choices through the introduction of a food pyramid and basic nutritional information. Following the presentation, our hope is that at least 50% of the students will be able to recognize, label, and understand a food pyramid.
• Objective 2: To raise awareness about the negative health consequences of smoking. Following the presentation, our goal is that at least 75% of the students in attendance will be able to identify three diseases (and their symptoms) known to be caused by smoking.
• Objective 3: To explain the potential health benefits of exercise and offer specific suggestions for incorporating exercise into daily routines. Following the presentation, our goal is that at least 75% of students will be able to list at least two ways they can incorporate daily exercise into their lives (e.g. walking or biking to school instead of driving a car, playing football after school).

Goal 2: Promote a Clean Environment

• Objective 1: To illustrate how burning fossil fuels / emitting carbon affects the environment and offer specific suggestions for simple choices that can be made to reduce an individuals “environmental footprint.” Following the presentation, our goal is that 50% of students in attendance will be able to identify three environmental consequences of emitting carbons / burning fossil fuels and 75% of students in attendance will be able to identify three positive outcomes of riding a bike or walking.

For more information or to view the complete grant information, contact us.

March Newsletter/Earth Day Plan

Did you know that Baku was named the dirtiest city in the world?

Committee News

• The Environmental Blog is up with helpful websites, lesson plans and updates. Find it at: http://envcommaz.blogspot.com
• Environmental resources have been put in the lounge. We are working on organizing and making them available to PCVs.
• To contact the committee you no longer need to email each of us individually. Our group email is: ENVCOMM@gmail.com
• Check out our blog for information on the environmental Trans-Caucus Effort
• 2 new members from AZ5 will be selected this SUMMER, so expect applications in the coming months
  

Earth Day Plan

The Environmental Committee has created a simple plan for PCVs to follow for Earth Day (April 22nd). It's designed to help you lead small environmental activities in your community in honor of Earth Day. Attached are several lesson plans, a clean-up guide, and art project ideas to help you educate students and community members.

We thought a good way to get PCVs and their communities involved would be to hold a Nationwide Earth Day Art Contest. The attached posters outline the rules and should be used to announce the contest at schools, community centers, etc. Hard copies of the newsletter and the posters will also be included in your next bi-weekly mailer. The goal of the art contest is to inspire young people to think critically and creatively about Azerbaijan's environment: the good as well as the bad. Depending on the number of entries received, it will be up to you to pick the local winners and forward the best entries to the committee member nearest you. National winners will be picked at our meeting in early May.

Timetable:

1. Art Contest - Start Early! Introduce the contest ASAP and encourage students/community members to participate.
   
2. Earth Day Week – Use an environmental lesson/activity in your classes, and introduce the idea of doing a clean up. Collect final contest entries.
   
3. Weekend after Earth Day (April 26th) – Do a trash pick-up activity
   

The anticipated goal of the Earth Day Plan is to provide PCVs with simple ways to involve their communities in environmental activities in honor of Earth Day. Please email us (envcomm@gmail.com) if you choose to participate in order for us to get feedback on your outcomes.

You can download PC Azerbaijan developed Earth activities HERE

Problem Areas in the Caucuses

Check out this poster:
(Thanks to PC Georgia)

http://filebox.vt.edu/users/iarnaoud/poster_caucasus_eng.pdf

Trans Caucus Environmental Initiative

This is a letter from a fellow PCV in Georgia who wants to collaborate with other Caucus contries on projects. The initiative is very new, so if you are interested, have ideas, or want to hear ideas, feel free to contact Julien:

Dear fellow PCV's,

Thank you for your rapid responses! Even though this idea is in its very beginning stages, the interest level and excitement in your emails shows that this will hopefully be a fantastic opportunity for all of us in the region. All three countries are active in environmental projects on some level, but all are at different points in their program developments. For example, I believe that PC Armenia has had the longest running environmental program, and PC Azerbaijan has begun activities within the last 2 years. We here in Georgia have been active since 2003, but are currently designing a new 3-year plan for our Eco-Project.

There are opportunities for cooperation on many levels, and I'd like to see what issues you would like to see discussed, as well as your ideas for the size and scope of this possible cooperation. To this end, I've thrown together a rapid survey for you to complete. Feel free to include whatever information you think would be helpful for the group (past or current project descriptions, photos, active NGOs, report links, etc.) for all of us to become better educated with the collective state of the environment in the Southern Caucuses.

I've gotten us started by creating a Google Group, where we will hopefully be able to easily communicate (when some of us get Internet opportunities!) This group can be found here:

http://groups.google.com/group/southcaucasuseco

As a disclaimer, I hasten to add that I'm not too experienced with Google Groups, so if you run into any problems, just shoot me an email, and we'll try to figure it out together. I've started us off by uploading a poster that I think you might find helpful/interesting, and I'm exited to learn more about the region from all of you.

Attached, you'll find the aforementioned survey, so please take some time and fill it out. You can just send me (julien.katchinoff@gmail.com) the completed surveys, and I'll compile the information for all to see in a couple weeks. We here in Georgia have a tentative Eco-Meeting on the 22nd, so at the risk of seeming to boss the other countries around, if those could be returned by the 15th of March, we would greatly appreciate it. :)


Keep warm at site, and thanks for your help,


Julien

Great Earth Day Websites

Hey all,

Expect our quarterly newsletter towards the middle of this month. If you are getting anxious about activates and lesson plans, here are some great sites to keep you busy:


http://www.edhelper.com/EarthDay.htm - Earth Day Analogies, Coloring Activities, Puzzles, Mazes, Games, Form Specific Activities and more!

http://www.teacherplanet.com/resource/earthday.php - Lessons, Worksheets, Information Handouts

http://earthday.wilderness.org/teachers/classroom.htm#1 - Great Classroom Activities and Printouts