#HoldTheRoll - A Movement from Finnish School of Kosovo
At Finnish School of Kosovo, we believe that societal transformation begins with education and tackling environmental issues is one of the main factors. To help equip young people with the skills and competencies needed to turn the tide, we launched our #HoldTheRoll initiative, a month-long global campaign dedicated to activism and innovative ways in reducing waste from the smallest things, like toilet paper rolls.
National
Kosovo
Prishtina, Ferizaj, Fushe Kosova, Shtime.
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Finnish SChool of Kosovo Type of organisation: University or another research institution First name of representative: Edlira Last name of representative: Dibrani Gender: Female Nationality: Kosovo Function: Communications Officer Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Prishtina-Ferizaj highway, QMI roundabout Town: PRishtina Postal code: 10000 Country: Kosovo Direct Tel:+383 45 678 679 E-mail:edlira.dibrani@finnish.school Website:https://kosovo.finnish.school/
At Finnish School, we believe that societal transformation begins with education. This philosophy extends across the entirety of our (extra)curricular activities and encourages community members to become firm advocates for change. However, one issue especially takes prominence in our student’s minds and remains one of the most urgent challenges facing this generation: the climate and environmental crisis.
To help equip young people with the skills and competencies needed to turn the tide, in November 2022 we launched our #HoldTheRoll initiative, as part of CNN’s global #CallToEarth campaign. With a dedicated month of activism, students came not only to understand how even the smallest items – like toilet paper – can have a profound environmental impact, but also how little steps can create lasting change. Our initiative was highlighted by CNN as the most innovative school in Europe to tackle climate crisis through this initiative.
As part of our first #HoldTheRoll month, we organized more than 20 K-12 activities to fully immerse our community in the processes of environmental degradation and protection. These included: research projects to raise awareness; recycling textiles and pickling vegetables to minimalize waste; planting trees in our playground; founding a swap market; and a field trip to Gërmia National Park to observe and study the sanctity of nature first-hand.
At the end of the month, students created an artwork (made from toilet paper rolls only) that remains on display in the school as a pledge from all students to save our environment before it is too late, even if it is from a small thing such as toilet paper rolls. We also published a magazine featuring over 35 articles written by our students and teachers, as well as poems, activities, actions, and initiatives that all demonstrate our community’s dedication to the cause. This is proof, we believe, of the substantial impact this initiative can achieve.
Sustainability
Changemaking
Innovation
Youth
Consistency
The umbrella aim of our first #HoldTheRoll initiative was to encourage students to look for solutions to curb and adapt to climate change, specifically prioritising cleaning the environment from toilet paper rolls and finding innovative ways to reuse, recycle, and create art from them. To aid in the achievement of this wider goal, we created several supplementary objectives:
First of all, we wanted students to understand the interdisciplinary nature of sustainable development. To do this, every student – from kindergarten to Grade 12 – was involved across the curriculum in relevant, related, and creative activities; in Home Economics, students learnt how to pickle vegetables to minimise food waste, having learnt in Sciences how food is processed and before creating artwork from packaging waste from the industry. By immersing students this way, we believe to have demonstrated how the environment is the responsibility of all.
Secondly, we aimed to raise awareness on how much we, as humans, contribute to pollution and in doing so begin to offer ways of concretizing a more sustainable lifestyle. Our swap market, for example, encouraged students to give their spare items to someone who needs them rather than throw them away – equally enforcing their skills for collaboration. The artworks we made out of toilet rolls and plastic bottle caps also visibly demonstrated just how excessively polluting a typical lifestyle can be. The extent to which our students resonated with these messages is exemplified in their published magazine, where their research projects clearly reflect their desires for change. Finally, we aimed to redefine words with negative connotations – like “trash” – into something beautiful, if such is reused in the right way. Given that much of the dialogue around climate focuses on apocalyptic outcomes, we felt building positive images of the future would inspire students to get involved, and to create beautiful things from simple waste.
One of our main objectives with the #HoldTheRoll initiative was not only to be informative but also inspiring and motivate students rather than discourage them about the future. As such, we opted to use a simplistic and colourful aesthetic across our material to encourage positive discussion and emotion that could easily be engaged with by students across K-12. This was something that we wanted our students to resonate with and to be something that they look forward to working on it even for longer periods of time and not only for this event.
Thus, we believe that taking small actions towards bigger and long-lasting causes is what takes us towards a better future for our planet. Throughout the month of November 2022, we initiated this campaign to increase awareness in our country on the usage of toilet paper rolls. Toilet paper is a daily necessity in our lives and something that is present in every household however sometimes we are not as aware as we should when it comes to noticing on how much it may be harming our nature.
On an average, our students analyzed that a family of four members uses approximately 3 toilet paper rolls a day, which, in a month, is 93 rolls, and in a year 1,116 rolls. In addition to this, if we consider only in our community being 200 families, this would roughly translate to approximately 223,200 toilet paper rolls being wasted on an annual basis. Over 223,000 toilet paper rolls being thrown in the oceans can have an alarming impact in our environment and badly affect the wildlife.
That is why we want to take this initiative and become more aware on how much we can be contributing to the earth pollution. We gathered toilet paper rolls throughout the month and we decided to create our #CallToEarth structure. Our little ones painted them with beautiful earth colors while the bigger students beautifully crafted them into the structure to spell out the slogan. This will serve a greater role in our community on how we see trash.
It was essential in our planning for #HoldTheRoll that every student in the community could get involved, which is why activities were designed that could cater to all age ranges.
Equally, we wanted to ensure that each student had access to the necessary materials needed for art projects which is why the initiative was centred on everyday items that every member of the student body has access to. Any resources that went beyond the remit of everyday necessities were provided by the school. In this way, all students could engage with the initiative activities.
The main materials and sources that were needed for our activities and the campaign were already used and no-longer-needed items in our school or at home. In order to reduce waste and potentially waste any other new products or items, we asked students to bring toilet paper rolls after they used the toilet paper at home and they collected them in the course of one month. This allowed the students to become aware on how much toilet paper they were using and how big the pile was getting from the rolls at home. When the rolls were brought to school, students became creative in designing them with different colours and structuring them into the wonderful #CallToEarth slogan, bringing life to a long-lasting call to action of our community in reducing the amount of toilet paper used in our daily routine.
Besides the rolls used, our students brought to school single-use plastic bottles that they used at home and we used them to create instruments, we created beautiful artwork made from the caps, and so on. This brought forth a beautiful art exhibition in our school that has left a long-lasting impact in our students and that continues to do so. Having a daily reminder of the impact of waste in our life in the form of art is the most impactful way that students can grow accustomed to this and truly believe that there is beauty in the things we least expect it, and that there is beauty even in trash.
As mentioned above, taking care of our environment and saving it from pollution is something that is not only a temporary activity and campaign for our students. It is something that is for the long-term, it is embedded in our very own curriculum that students grow and become educated in an environment that pays great attention to our planet and home and that we take care of it, even if the steps we take may seem small. Small steps go the long journey in the long-term.
Our initiative aimed at increasing awareness more in our community and this leading to change in our daily habits of polluting the environment. Ever since the school was established 5 years ago, our school has had a strict no-plastic-waste policy, meaning that it does not allow any single-use plastic items at school to be used that can go into polluting the nature. Students are asked to use reusable water bottles instead of plastic cups, they are required to eat from the school canteen in order to reduce food waste, we use rechargeable batteries in order not to waste them, we compost fruit and vegetable scraps in order to make natural fertilizers for our school garden, and so on. This initiative in reducing the use of toilet paper in our community was a continuation of our efforts to making our school premises a place where we protect our planet and that these students take these lessons and practice them in real life and outside of school.
Besides being highlighted by CNN in a global scale of our achievement in having such a tremendous impact in the environment, we spread the word among youth in the country of Kosovo (our home country) and called to action youngsters to reduce wasting the environment and provided alternatives to self-cleaning and that are eco-friendlier. This reached a huge audience in our country and increased awareness in our country towards being more aware of the climate crisis.
This initiative involved not only our students, but the whole school community, including teachers, parents, and partners. Besides our community, local and international media were involved in spreading the message and the campaign across local and international scales in order to reach a wider audience.
As part of our curriculum, environmental studies is a mandatory course for all of our students where they get closer to mother nature and have a deeper connection with the planet. Besides having this close connection, they discuss and learn about the human factor in the environment and what causes climate change, global warming, pollution, animal extinction, and so much more. Therefore, in analysing the factors of environmental pollution our students were focused during this subject to choose a more specific angle such as toilet paper rolls and see their effect in the pollution. The data that were extracted were shocking and eye-opening for them in order to take necessary measures.
Following on this up, our students in biology classes in upper secondary classes took on a more personal stand and visited the national Germia park where they reconnected with nature more and understood how many other places and species are endangered by the human factors. After this, students were involved by the arts teachers to bring to life monumental and impactful art works that reflect the message of the situation the world is in. We wanted our students to see closely how waste and trash can become useful and having an impact in our lives through the message they convey. The creative side was the easy side as the students found innovative ways to convey the message to the audience and to be an inclusive platform for people to relate to as toilet paper is used by almost everyone.
What makes our initiative different is that it uses the phenomenon do the talking through art. We wanted our students’ artistic work to convey the message and call to action for everybody who was exposed to it. We want this initiative not to stop here as we want this to grow into bigger and even more artistic activities that include people from around the world. We aimed people to relate to our project with something that they daily use, and not to go into wider topics such as global warming which is quite mainstream on the media. As we took a more personal approach towards something that people are familiar, we created a stronger connection between the monument and the use of toilet paper rolls so that people can see how this impacts the environment. The goal of this is to create long-lasting self-awareness of our own actions and to slowly change our habits which, in the long run, bring long-lasting results and reduce the waste in our planet.
Another characteristic of our initiative is that this implements phenomenon-based learning which encompasses obtaining knowledge and skills through seeing phenomena and being exposed to them. In addition to this, this is a cross-curricular initiative that touches every single student in the school, their families at home and the community at large. In this regard, we made a very important issue such as climate change and sustainability as a part of our curriculum.
Through this initiative, we don’t only teach our students, but we empower them to act and thus make them active citizens in the quest to a just and sustainable world.
As mentioned below, toilet paper rolls are something that majority of people use around the world and which are difficult to get rid of as they are a commodity that will be present in the future. People from around the world can collect toilet paper rolls and create their own monument and artistic exhibitions that can be displayed for different people of different ages.
We approached our students and parents to access daily things that they use at home, such as the toilet paper rolls and collect them in order to turn waste into something beautiful and meaningful for our community and further. Students were assigned activities and lessons that they needed to partake as part of their evaluation and assessment in environmental studies subject in order for them to become more aware of this increasingly dangerous factor in our lives.
Going small goes towards big things. We believe this is an adequate statement when it comes to environment pollution. Our planet has not been increasingly polluted over the years because of the major industries polluting it; it has arrived to this state because of our everyday-small-yet-not-seemingly-so-highly-significant actions that contribute slowly but greatly to the inevitable gruesome state of our planet. This starts as small as drinking from a new bottle of water every day, taking plastic bags from the store after every daily purchase, using paper in office documents, and having a cup of coffee to go. All these single-use items go towards huge landfills of trash and patches of oceans with high levels of garbage thrown into them that cannot be reused or recycled and that damage our ecosystems and contribute to a more dangerous place.
Our daily decisions and routines can affect the environment. We often ignore the effect our use of toilet paper has on the environment. Toilet paper is a modern luxury that is practical and effective for wiping. However, the production, manufacturing, and shipping of our conventional toilet paper comes at a significant environmental cost. The multibillion-dollar toilet paper industry is a major cause of pollution, climate change, and environmental deterioration.
The idea of our call to action is for people to slowly become more aware of their spending habits that contribute to the pollution of the environment and slowly shift to more responsible and more considerate ways of lifestyle that do not impact the environment we live in. This takes a longer period to have an impact however this is what makes a long-lasting change in our communities. As we are an educational institution, we believe that educating the future generations of the world will impact greatly our planet as their lifestyle habits will be the changemakers and will contribute to a safer and better planet for all of us to live in.
Our school started implementing initiatives and campaigns that were environmental focused two years ago by becoming part of CNN’s global #CallToEarth campaign which focuses on bringing innovative solutions in protecting our environment. The first year of establishment of our eco-campaigns was more general and our students focused on different solutions that can result in protecting the environment. The second year, which was last year, and that culminated on November 3, 2022, was much more focused on one aspect of environmental pollution such as toilet paper rolls waste. This way, we involved students in activities that were primarily focused about toilet paper rolls and the artistic approach to it, but not only. Students were asked to do comparative analyses from our country with other countries in the world, they wrote research papers and compared their scientific results with those across the globe and came up with innovative solutions. The first year our school was highlighted by CNN in regards to our innovative approach towards climate change whereas the second year we were the main highlight of European schools across the globe by CNN demonstrating a special focus of our school towards climate change crisis. This showed that our school took a more unique approach towards tackling environmental issues, that is by taking smaller areas that in the long-run contribute greatly to global warming.
Below are links to the progress of our efforts in protecting our environment throughout these two years:
Finnish School activities featured on CNN's #CallToEarth Campaign November 3, 2021: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiY8JTOhTyk&t=2s
Previous #CallToEarth initiative November 3, 2021: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6T-KH1__jg&t=1s
Solutions from tomorrow's influencers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKPLWuKd-jo&t=112s
CNN's #CallToEarth highlights - Finnish School of Kosovo #HoldTheRoll November 3, 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rEREyCvqiE
In the basics of the early childhood education plan and curricula, the areas of learning that combine subjects or the sub-areas of broad competence form the common goals for education and teaching. One of the areas of learning or a part of interdisciplinary competences is particularly focused on building a sustainable future. Early childhood education strengthens the relationship with nature and understanding of the cultural diversity of the local community. In elementary school, the perspective expands from the local environment to the global level. In the upper grades of basic education, the social and cultural as well as economic and ecological requirements of sustainable development are taken into consideration with practical examples. In teaching, the goal is also to understand the interlinking of the dimensions of sustainable development and to concretize a sustainable lifestyle.
In upper secondary education, the student evaluates and plans his/her activities from the starting points of ethics and responsibility. Through them, knowledge about curbing climate change and safeguarding natural diversity is deepened, and observations from the perspectives of social influence are reflected.
Finnish School of Kosovo educates future change-makers by
• developing learning and competence in a versatile way
• strengthening broad-based general education
• promoting inclusion
• promoting a sustainable lifestyle
• developing problem-solving skills; learn to face the needs for change openly, evaluate them
critically and take responsibility for the choices that build the future
• understanding the multifaceted interdependencies that prevail in life and the world, and structure- wide-ranging phenomena.
