Brief description of the organisation/initiative
Save your hood is an initiative that unites environmentally conscious and active citizens and empowers them to take an active role toward a better, greener and more sustainable future. Save your hood organises neighbourhood clean-up events, where volunteers and active citizens collect the trash from the specific neighbourhood, creating clean, aesthetically more pleasant and healthier places to live. In other words, the Save Your Hood movement strengthens initiatives and gives citizens the means to act by providing a common ground where everyone can express their ideas and concerns and empower each other for healthier neighbourhoods.
Challenge overview
Littering is a severe problem in Greece. There are many public spaces in Greece, like parks or beaches, full of trash, as the result of irresponsible behaviour by the citizens. Save your hood seek to raise awareness of such behaviour and empower people to contribute to the solution by investing their time and energy into cleaning the neighbourhoods while fostering an eco-friendly mindset and solidarity at the same time
Establishment of the organisation/initiative/enterprise
The way the idea was born is incredibly simple. The initiator of Save your hood, Vassilis Sfakianopoulos, just saw someone throwing trash on the street. This was a trigger to mobilise his friends and organise the first Save your hood event, where volunteers collected 32 garbage bags of 100 lt in Tourkovounia territory. The idea was born during the first lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic (in spring 2020) and became well known during the second lockdown (November 2020). This simple event became a movement, and Save Your Hood initiatives are taking place all over Greece.
Management structure and governance
Save Your Hood is a non-profit initiative. The movement started in Greece and spread around Europe. There are several groups in Hungary and Cyprus. Each group has an independent coordinator.
Principles of work, objectives and activities
A dedicated Facebook group was created to reach out to volunteers, promote the actions under the Save Your Hood initiative and coordinate the events. Once a week, everyone in the Facebook group can find proposals to join the action in place. This way, everyone can see the upcoming clean-up events and register for them in their neighbourhoods. There is no specific number of people that should participate in the event. Even one person could initiate and organise a clean-up initiative.
Target groups
Save Your Hood initiative targets everyone who has the desire to commit to the environmental cause. Even though young people are the most active, with the good visibility of the initiative on Facebook, people from different age groups join the activities and contribute to the success of Save Your Hood.
Innovation
The success of the initiative strongly depends on the people involved. The interest in environmental matters is slowly spreading around Greece. However, other initiatives face difficulties in motivating people to join the activities/events. Save Your Hood succeeded in involving people from different age groups, raising awareness about its importance, and empowering people to take an active role in their communities.
Key partners
Save your hood is a network itself. There are groups in several cities, regions and countries which operate supporting the same cause. However, Save your hood does not have external partners.
Impact and Evaluation
Save your hood has reached significant results. Until now, there have been 270 actions organised, and 510430 litres of garbage collected all around Greece. Moreover, the initiative also has a positive impact on people – they are more environmentally conscious and motivated. Moreover, by taking part in the actions, people create a better environment to live for themselves.
Recommendations
Save your hood initiative could be easily replicated everywhere by the same means as in Greece. Facebook has proven to be a good aggregation tool, and since it works in roughly every country, it could be used as an instrument to reach, motivate and coordinate people to join the movement.
Lessons Learned
The success of the Save your hood initiative shows that people are ready to commit to the environment. Creating groups has proved to be a great solution – people are willing to become a part of the “green movement”, contribute to positive change, and benefit even on the personal level – meet new people with the same mindset and values. Through the establishment and elaboration of the initiative, it was proven that motivation and a good example can influence others strongly – this is the key to the success of such initiatives.
References
The Save Your Hood website.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.