The world is in crisis, just as our education system is in crisis. What can we do? Our organizations work with nature-based approaches and, over the years, we have gotten to know many more practices which offer different settings and approaches to learning. But we wondered, how can we offer these opportunities to target groups not in our bubble? How do we make them known? We thought of a Green Map - a map of places that offer opportunities to learn about caring for nature, in nature.

Throughout the Municipality of Litija, Slovenia

The main challenge it will tackle is the distance (both physical and metaphorical) between facilities for education on nature and sustainability.
For example, schools in our region often take the pupils to the capital city for education on nature - first to the zoo, then the botanical garden - despite the fact that there are other facilities available closer to home. This is largely due to convenience - they make one trip to two well-known locations.
The map will bring the facilities and different nature-based providers together in one central information source, with suggestions for routes that pass multiple locations in one trip. This way, teachers and other educators / youth leaders or private individuals will be able to find local places to go more easily.

The online Green Map and booklet will be aimed at educators and young people, but not exclusively. We would like to promote it locally and more widely.
We will be working with school children and teenagers on one hand, and young adults and the mostly middle-aged locals on the other. Within this project we plan to engage local primary and secondary schools and the local community within the municipality - especially when devising the educational routes.

Step by step plan:
Meeting with the team who will coordinate the project (5-8 members)
Prepare the outline of the webpage and the Green Map publication with the graphic and web designer
Send out a PR kit with a call for nature- based education providers in Litija and surroundings
Go to the field - interview the potential providers, involve them in the Green Map publication and on the webpage
Prepare the two educational routes for young people and test them
Promote the Green Map with interested activity providers on at least 10 events
Think about further expansion of the map and dissemination (the online Green Map will be alive and interactive - new locations will be added over time by us, by visitors, followers, etc.)
...
The approach behind the creation of the Green Map, and our association’s story, is strongly connected with the notion that our societies need to be organized differently, with its foundations in sustainability, connectedness, community, cooperation and caring for nature.

A green map of the Litija region, published in a booklet and on a web page.
It would provide information about educational entities such as farms, associations and social businesses which offer education in sustainable living in the Litija region.
It will also suggest ‘green routes’ - programmes which connect various locations on the map, so that groups or individual people can visit several locations in one tour.
The map will be available for use as an educational resource, in schools as well as institutions for informal education and for the public at large.
It was also be useful as a networking tool. In the making, it will form a network of practitioners / farmers - they will be more easily able to find people who do similar or complementary work to their own more easily.

The project will enable members of our community to educate themselves and others in sustainable practices, thus further enabling them to live a life that is more harmonious with the environment. Similarly, it will provide teachers and other education professionals with a resource for teaching their students how to be more active in protecting our environment and natural resources.
Such education will empower people to act in the best interests of their local environment, and to engage with decision makers on matters of sustainability in an informed and constructive manner.
Furthermore, if people wish to deepen their involvement in sustainable practices and participate more actively, the Green Map will provide them with the knowledge of where to find projects they can join in on.

We would like to motivate formal and nonformal educational institutions to choose open nature over four walls, local and green over consumerism and materialism. We see with our own eyes many initiatives and entities that do great work in the field of sustainability but are unknown to the wider public.The Green Map will be the space where they present themselves. The Raznolikost and Lojtra teams work in rural areas, in nature, and in the local town community. We have the knowledge and skills on how to carry out such a process (experience in leading projects) and we already know a lot of stakeholders who will be presented on the map (from previous successful cooperations). In addition, care for tomorrow and appreciation of nature is our biggest motivation.

Public relations: 1000
Web design: 3000
Green map design: 2000
Green map publication and printing: 3000
Office expenses: 1000
Travel costs: 2000
Personnel costs (all the staff on the field, educational routes creation and testing): 20 000

Any kind of idea, comment, feedback on how to improve the initiative is welcome! If you are using nature-based approaches or permaculture in your work, we can also think about how to do something together in our communities!