Messzelátó Egyesület

Ars poetica

Our Association usually upcycle waste by making plates from paper, ironed plastic bags, lipbalm containers from PET-bottles and so on. The furniture in the office and our computing devices are also recycled or restored. Our fellows usually goes by bike or use public transport. We usually by clothes at second hand shops. We usually held flower or clothes swapping events. We buy food from the market or primary producers. Sometimes we cook and eat together. For us it's important to build up an open community around Messzelátó Association which is thinking about the environmental issues. We pay special attention for disadvantaged youngsters, for e.g. children from foster home, hard fate gypsies and autistic programmer. Our association has 20 members and almost 700 volunteers.

Messzelátó Nature Conservation Association was founded by students of zoology in 1999. The word „messzelátó” means binoculars, and also someone who looks ahead into the future. Our main aim is to help young people to recognise the values of their natural and built environment. We believe that by knowing these values they will pay more attention to protect them. Developing ecotourism also strengthens this process. Knowing and introducing our local values provides a livelihood for local people. With this in mind we created the North-Somogy ecotourist map and we are working on the continuation as well. Furthermore we try to draw attention to the environmental problems (eg. global warming, waste and water pollution, etc.) threatening quality of life, and we promote methods (eg. environmental-friendly energy, selective waste collection) that can eliminate these problems.

To reach our goal we organise excursions, photo competitions, waste collections, we create educational paths, we edit ecotourist maps, and participate in summer festivals where we raise environmental awareness and distribute information regarding this topic. The members of the organisation are mostly young people who are interested in nature conservation and environmental protection. We work in close cooperation with various environmental NGOs too.

We have been taking part in the EVS programme as a sending organisation since 2002, and in 2003 we launched the 2003-HU-18 EVS project to promote ecotourism in the south-east region of Hungary which is so rich in natural treasures. In 2006 we started another project (2005-HU-44) and create a nature trail in the Buda-hills by virtue of this activity.

We have hosted volunteers from different places. We already accepted young people from Italy, France, and Spain, and this spring a Portugal and a French volunteer will join us. In parallel, some of our members will start their voluntary service in Portugal, France and Scotland.