RoRec Projects

The Diham chalet, 1320 m above sea level. The logging road that took us here did pose a bit of a challenge, but we got here fine. Everything around us is pitch-black. There’s nothing to navigate by, except for the chalet’s lights. And the racket. There’s quite some racket in the chalet.

We came here for three days, to “trade know-how” with the youngsters in the Leo Club – the „junior wing” of the Lions Club.

For those who could use this info, Lions Club is an organization counting nearly 1.5 million members, in over 200 countries. These are the people ready to lend a hand when disasters strike even the most remote places on Earth; they are the helpers, so, naturally, their motto is “WE SERVE”.

The Diham chalet hosts an international camp, an environment of both fun and learning for these children. They learn how to volunteer, in the purest sense of the word, but also to lead. They learn to lose, but also to win. And we are here to teach them how important is to adequately recycle electrical and electronic appliances. I am extremely curious how they do it in their home countries.

We are met by the camp managers. They have set up, especially for us, a campfire, and have prepared a few stories to go with it. I try to read each of them by the way they tell stories, sing, and laugh. The next day Iuliana, my colleague, is to have a brief presentation on what the RoRec Association is all about, on what does it do and on where do children come in in our actions.

The strong mountain air, the sleepiness following a full day and a few droplets of rain send us to our beds.
In the morning, we wake up in the sound of the horn – waking everybody up at 9 a.m. They all bring their sleepy faces to breakfast. After that, the kids will carry on their planned activities, while we will start preparing the „conference room” for Iuliana’s presentation.

We start at noon. The children are pretty interested in what we have to say. One can tell they come from western countries, where selective garbage disposal is a well-established habit. They have stopped, so very long ago, throwing plastic in the same garbage can with paper... but they can’t quite follow what’s this WEEE we keep talking about. These things must be something their parents do... but that’s why we’re here, to provide explanations. They are very attentive at what we have to say. After Iuliana’s presentation comes a small contest, with prizes for those who provide correct answers to our WEEE themed questions. We are surprised to discover how interested they’ve been in the subject and how many things they managed to memorize. It doesn’t take long until we run out of prizes, and then we take off for the mountain. Then, it’s our turn to answer their questions. And the questions are not few, some of them extremely interesting. They’ve certainly understood more than we would’ve imagined.

As the evening falls we say our good-byes, because we leave early in the morning, while the kids will still be sound asleep.

I leave thinking that we managed to leave something solid behind us. That these mature children have understood a number of things and that they’ll get more involved in protecting the environment and WEEE collection actions. One thing is for certain – we have convinced the Romanian members of the Leo club how important our actions are; we’ll certainly see them by our side, as volunteers, during our future campaigns.