Messzelátó Egyesület

The purpose of my Future Capital Project was the promotion of composting in some Hungarian schools.

Since my arrival, I gathered my ideas about this topic; Found the schools in Budapest; Thought about the playful tools to teach and define what it will be important to create... And I found Komposzt Karcsi!!

Komposzt Karcsi is an earthworm and he likes compost! That’s the most important thing to know!

It’s a logo for the children of the schools to illustrate how important it is to compost!

It’s a funny way to learn for the kids, because it’s not too “academic” and in the same time it’s a very serious and current topic. So, they visualize it more what is going on during the compost degradation of the waste when you use a concrete tool. Because everything is about waste recycling. Why is it important to recycle? How can I recycle my household waste? ... These are not the first questions a kid would ask him or herself.

So, the task was to explain first why you need to compost your household and your yard waste; Then to show them that it’s a very simple thing that everybody can do; and finally to make them realize that they can contribute to the environment protection very simply.

I used a simple presentation with pictures and simple sentences in Hungarian to explain the most important things about composting using Komposzt Karcsi as a narrator. To make it more visual, I created a poster about what you can put or not inside a compost bin, just with drawings.

And then, in order to make them understand concretely, I gave them some games directly related to what I said before. At the end of the class, I gave the children some Komposzt Karcsi stickers, as a gift of course, but also as a reminder of the topic! They will remember (I hope) the environmental lesson when they have a look at the sticker.

And to finalize all, I distributed a little brochure about the essential points of compost: basic information, games, instructions of a mini compost box,...

For one of the 3 schools that I’ve been to, we built two different kinds of compost bins; two with a wooden frame and another one in grid frame. I built them with the help of the 17-year-old students of the school, with Agi, the EVS coordinator and with the other EVS volunteers of Messzelato Egyesulet. Thanks to everybody who participated! At the same time, Marlène, an EVS volunteer was filming the compost building!

In the Komposzt Karcsi website I summarize everything that I’ve done during my 5 months in Hungary. There are information about compost, even advanced details about it, the games that I gave to the children, the instructions to build 2 different kinds of compost boxes, some photos about the compost building and about the lessons in the schools, and a short video about the compost building.