How to Save Money and the Planet in Your CISV Programme

2016 is CISV’s year for Sustainable Development. Throughout the year, we will bring you ideas, discussion pieces, materials and resources to help you to explore, educate on, and take action toward Sustainable Development in your Chapter or Programme. 

If enthusiasm was the currency of the world, then CISV would be a goldmine! However, running a CISV programme can quite expensive. But the Sustainable Development Team have put our heads together to give CISVers some helpful tips to ensure that our programmes can be economically, as well as environmentally sustainable…

1. Made too much Rice/Pasta/Purple soup?! Don’t throw it away; leftover food can be recycled too! How about making that pasta into a pasta salad for the next day? Or using up vegetables in a sauce, stew or curry?
2. Did you know in the UK alone 275,000 tons of plastic are used each year? That’s about 15 million bottles per day (Recycle Guide UK). That’s neither economically or environmentally sustainable. So how about assigning everyone a water bottle at the beginning of your programme with their name on it, you could do a full camp activity with the mission keep your bottle for the whole duration. This could be concluded with a discussion on sustainability and inventive ways you could re-use rather than throw away your plastic bottles.
3. When planning an excursion how about finding something to visit for free … our world is full of natural wonders. Take a picnic, your water bottles and play CISV games while exploring your host country.
4. Cooking for large numbers can make food budgets really add up. How about going vegetarian for three days of the week? Lentils and chickpeas are often much cheaper but still highly nutritious. Or buy only locally sourced, seasonal products. They are often inexpensive and much tastier!
5. Make transport cheaper by using the local buses/trains/metro. Or, if you are close to a town how about walking in for shopping day or excursion? Not only are you saving money, but the planet too!

These are just a few things we can do to be more economically sustainable but we bet you can think of some more… share your ideas in a comment below.

Happy saving!

By Madeleine Le Bourdon

The Sustainable Development Team includes members of CISV’s Educational Programmes Committee, Kompaz Project, International Junior Branch Team, Communications Team, and the International Office. Our team coordinator is Madeleine Le Bourdon.