50,000 Children SPARE

The project’s name, SPARE, is an abbreviation of “School Project for Application of Resources and Energy”.
SPARE is a highly successful energy-education project. More than 4,000 schools are involved to energy education, and practical actions from 17 countries. The purpose of SPARE is to fight climate change and to stabilize CO2 emissions by reducing the total energy consumption. The children bring awareness to their families.


November 11 - International Energy Saving Day! Children SPARE ! JOIN !!
Save energy in the school and at home! Write postcards, articles, make exhibitions!

Competitions:
- Each year there are national and international competitions
- The deadline is generally in February-March.
- The competition is a big success each year. About 600 students and teachers participates from about 13 countries.
- The deadline for the Competitions generally are in: February-March

Material:
- In 2007-08, the full material was translated from Russian to English, and the new round of the Competition is running in 2 languages in Russian and in English.
- The basic material is available in national languages of the previous CIS countries.

New Countries: In 2007-10, INFORSE-Europe member organizations made a launch in Romania (Earth Friends), Portugal (Almargem), and in Bulgaria (Za Zemiata).

Overall Coordination:
- Friends of the Baltic, Russia
- Friends of the Earth, Norway

National Coordinators:
Armenia: Eco-club Tapan
Azerbaijan: Azerbaijan Youth Movement (AYU)
Belarus: Ecoproject
Bulgaria: Za Zemiata
Georgia: EcoVision, (Ecovzgljad)
Kazakhstan: EcoObraz
Kyrgyzstan: BIOM
Macedonia: Proaktiva
Moldova: Gutta club
Poland: The European Association of Ecologists (GAP)
Portugal: Almargem and Centro Ciencia Viva de Tavira (CCVT)
Romania: Prietenii Pamantului (Earth Friends)
Russia: Friends of the Baltic
Tajikistan: "For the Earth!"
Turkmenistan: Dashoguz Ecological Guardians
Ukraine: Ecological club "Eremurus", Kiev
Uzbekistan: ADEK

UNFCCC COP15, December 2009:
SPARE, together with INFORSE, was present at UNFCCC-COP15 and the parallel Klimaforum in Copenhagen.
Read about the participation at INFORSE at COP15, SPARE Side Event on December 9, 2009.
See pictures of the exhibition at Bella Center and exhibition at Klimafoum09.
Read the SPARE web site coverage on the COP15.

INFORSE members prepared the way for SPARE in 3 new countries in 2007-10:

Romania:

Prietenii Pamantului (PP) has worked to introduce the SPARE in Romania since 2007.

In 2007-08, the activities has focused on:
- Adapting a major part of the Moldova version to Romanian language,
- Testing the program in 5 selected schools for 200 pupils
- Assessing the results in a report,
- Publishing articles for a Romanian magazine and press.
- Adaptation to make the material more incompatible to the requirements of the Romanian Educational Ministry.

In 2009, the SPARE activities involved several new schools from Suceava, and from Bacau counties as well from Galati and Galati County. The exercises were conducted by teachers, and the role of Prietenii Pamantului was to coach teachers and to provide examples of activities as well as to work together with students on practical activities. Two more solar collectors and several solar cooking boxes were built by students during the several hours allocated for this kind of activities, with the help of Prietenii Pamantului people.
Under the coordination of the teachers, students produced several models of wind turbines, models of houses with solar PV panels, solar collectors, biogas generators, water wheels, and water mills.
During the summer holidays, between 12 and 20 students from Brusturoasa, Agas and Ghimes (three large villages on the Trotus Valley) were present for 6 hours every day in our place, in Brusturoasa. We made possible for kids to enjoy various educative activities in the field of English Language, practical work on energy and on education of taste. The variation of the themes was very beneficial, because nobody was bored any single moment. The results are amazing in terms of improving the communication abilities, of developing new skills, everything in a very positive atmosphere.

In 2010, about 500 children were involved in the educational program in Romania
On the SPARE international competition, there was a Romanian pupil who received his prize at a special ceremony.
There are 4 newly established 4 Local Energy Planning Committees, which are working in conformity with the existing program. There are fully functional projects in Brusturoasa (solar PV, solar heat, and wind power), Piscu (solar thermal and solar PV), Sarulesti (efficient insulation and double glazed windows in a school), and Sovata (public lighting using street LED lamps).
- PP is running school education in cooperation with other 6 Romanian NGOs in 30 schools located in various cities and towns. More information and images of our activities in these schools, including the Intenational Contest “Energy and Habitat”, are on the web page of the project “Romanian small communitirs, schools and NGOs promote climate friendly energy solutions” with financial support from Norwegian Government: www.comunitativerzi.ro (not available anymore). The site is in Romanian and English languages.
- A permanent exhibition was opened at the newly built Centre for Tradition and Sustainable Development, Brusturoaasa, Bacau County.
- The mobile exhibition was present in Agas, Palanca, Ciughes, Sovata, Piscu, Galati, Sarulesti, Lehliu, and Calarasi. It is estimated that more than thousand people including a lot of school children have seen the exhibition.

More information: att. Ion Constantine Zamfir (Prietenii Pamantului) E-mail: earthfriends@clicknet.ro

Bulgaria:

In 2009, Za Zemiata (ZZ) started up the SPARE Program in Bulgaria very successfully.
- The textbooks was published in 780 copies and it was distributed on the SPARE seminars to the teachers involved in the program.
- The Bulgarian National Radio broadcasted 30-minute interview with the National Coordinator of SPARE Todor Todorov. (Aug 20, 2009)
- SPARE received the official support of the Ministry of Environment.
- Events on November 21, November 25, and December 5, 2009 brought together several hundreds of NGO representatives, teachers who received CDs and trainings.

In 2010, Za Zemiata continued the success with the SPARE Program.
- The text book was published again, as the 2009 edition ran out of stock.
- Four teacher’s trainings and one conference of the school environmental clubs were organized. The trainings were in Varna (April 24), Sofia (June 5, November 27), Veliko Tarnovo (October 16). The national conference of the school environmental clubs took place in Varna on October 8-9.
- The SPARE competition for school projects was organized in February and March. 111 projects were accepted and 10 of them were awarded on the national level on the Spare competition. 5 of the projects were sent to the International SPARE Competition. The Bulgarian projects won second place in the category for teachers and 3rd place in the category for students’ projects.

Read more on the SPARE Bulgaria on: www.spareworld.org/eng/bulgaria, and on Za Zemiata at www.zazemiata.org .
More information Todor Todorov (ZZ), e-mail: ecolog@gmail.com .


Portugal:

In 2007-08, Almagrem worked on to introduce SPARE in Portugal.
The activities focused on:
- Translating general information on SPARE, and INFORSE to Portuguese
- Developing web page where this material is available.
- Promoting SPARE and INFORSE on a large exhibition on Clean Technologies and Sustainable Mobility in Portugal, where Almagrem organized educational activities with solar toys, ovens and windmills.
- Contacting schools in the Algavre region to participate in the SPARE program
- Selecting 5 interested schools
- Assessing the SPARE material. It was concluded that the material needed to be not only translated, but also adapted to the Portugal school needs.
In 2008, Almagrem translated the main 26-page material of SPARE.
The 26-page document can be download here: SPARE - Portugal 171 kB pdf file
Read more on the activities in 2007-08 at: Almargem 's web site (not available anymore)

In 2010, CCVT took over the SPARE. CCVT has a 2-year plan to the introduction.
Until the end of 2010 the following was achieved among others:
- The full text book (70-page) was translated to Portuguese and printed.
- Three meeting were held with teachers.
- In two Portuguese schools it was tested.
- Partnership was created with the Regional Energy and Environmental Agency, AREAL (Agência Regional de Energia e Ambiente do Algarve and the Tavira Municipality. AREAL hels 2 training sessions on simple energy auditing tools. The Tavira Municipality also collaborated by making available the energy bills of both schools participating in the project.
- The local authority (Câmara Municipal de Tavira – the Chamber of the Tavira Municipality) was contacted and inited to collaboration.
More information on new development of SPARE activities in 2010 at CCVT:
CCVT's web site http://www.cvtavira.pt/home, as well as SPARE and INFORSE.
Contact perosn: Cecile Godinho e-mail: cecilegodinho@yahoo.co.uk .

The SPARE Story:
The European school project (SPARE), to changing behaviour, was launched from Norway to Eastern Europe. In the period of 1996-99, more than 2,000 classes and 50,000 school children from 10 European counties were participating every year in the SPARE project.
In the first year, the project was partly funded by the European Union’s SAVE program. Finland and Scotland were the first EU countries to join. Eastern Europe was very well represented, with participating schools from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. The financing of the project in the Central Eastern European countries stopped in 2000, but some schools continued to run similar program built on the success.- In 2003, the SPARE material was updated in Russian and was launched in Russia and in the previous CIS countries. The material has been translated to the languages of the previous CIS countries.

- In March, 2006, there was a workshop organized together with INFORSE-Europe in St. Petersburg, Russia. See at Seminar.

- In 2005-06, there was a successful SPARE Competition of School Energy Projects.

- In 2006-07, a new Round was launch for Competition of School Energy Projects.

In 2007, a new initiative was agreed in the Annual Meeting in Moldova. SPARE started up practical projects, and announced a slogan: "We can contribute to reduction of CO2 emissions”.

- In 2007-08, the full material is under translation from Russian to English, and the new round of the Competition is running in 2 languages in Russian and in English.

- In 2007-08, INFORSE member organizations prepared to launch SPARE in Romania and Portugal.

- In 2008, the International Energy Saving Day was launched.

- In 2008, 150,000 pupils were involved from more than 3000 schools.

- In 2009-10, 175,000 pupils were involved from about 4500 schools. SPARE has a steady growth and it is getting more and more "official" support from Educational Ministries.

SPARE in Norway, and Europe:
The web site www.naturvern.no/spare/
Description in Norwegian and English.
Brochure can be downloaded in English/Russian.

SPARE (Russia and the previous CIS countries):
The web site www.spareworld.org include links to the national SPARE web sites in the previous CIS countries. On the website there are contact details to all national Coordinators.

Activities of SPARE in English at SPAREWORLD.
The SPARE 60-page Textbook translated to English at the SPARE website BOOK (5.5MB pdf file) , (Published 2007-08).
In addition to this textbook, various materials have been developed: study plans, methodological guidance for teachers, leadership instructions for NGOs for distributing SPARE, suggestions for including practical low-cost measures of energy-savings, methodological and informational video films, and multimedia CDs and DVDs.

Articles/presentations in English in Sustainable Energy News:

Articles in 2008-10:
- Sustainable Energy News (SEN), Issue June 2010 #69, page 9.
SPARE in the 2009/2010 School Year and Forward.
- Sustainable Energy News (SEN), Issue December 2010 #71, page 9.
SPARE news International Competition and News from Romania, Portgal and Bulgaria.
Link to SEN.

- Sustainable Energy News (SEN), Issue December 2009 #67, page 7.
Reaching out to over 10,000 Schools in Ukraine (pdf file 1 page 133 kB) Link to SEN.

- Sustainable Energy News (SEN), Issue April-May 2009 #64, page 9.
June 3-4, 2009 Conference on EECCA region, SPARE in Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia.
By Yngvild Lorentzen, et.al. SPARE. Link to SEN.

- Sustainable Energy News, Issue December 2008, #63, page 8.
Textbook, SPARE Competition 2007-08, Results of the Energy Saving Day 2008.
By Olga Senova, SPARE. Link to SEN.

Article on practical actions and school Competition in 2007:
- Sustainable Energy News, December 2007 on page 8. (330kB pdf file).
- Presentation of SPARE, October 11, 2007, EfE Conference, handout (pdf 908 kB), slides (pdf 4.2 MB)

Article on the Workshop and Competitions in 2006:
- Sustainable Energy News issue #54, September 2006 on page 6 (pdf file 117kB)
- Sustainable Energy News issue #53, June 2006 on page 6.(pdf file 256 kB)
- Workshop organised together with INFORSE-Europe in St. Petersburg, Russia. March 2006. See at Seminar 06.

2-page Brochure (December 2006)
(pdf file 635 kB)

SPARE in Period 1996-2000:
- Sustainable Energy News, issue #29, 2000. (pdf file 101kB)