Invite your alumni network members to try a more eco-friendly lifestyle! This toolkit offers a fun way of boosting a discussion on sustainability by challenging the network to live without plastics for a week (or longer!).
About
The Plastic Free Week challenges your members to not consume any disposable plastics for at least a week. It will hopefully result in participants realising how much plastic we surround ourselves with on a daily basis. The activity will create awareness about the negative impacts which plastic has on the environment while also offering a fun way for alumni to network with each other.
The Plastic Free Week challenge will kick start with an inspirational event where the problems related to plastics are presented.
If you are looking for an activity to organise during the Plastic Free Week challenge a Plastic Free Photo competition is the perfect one! Enocurage your network to take pictures of their plastic free lifestyle and share them with the rest of the network. At the end of the week you can select a winner.
You can finish off the challenge with an event to share your experience from the week and celebrate your achievements. One option is to organise a plogging activity or an Eko Fika in connection to the closing session of the challenge. You can find more information about that in the Plogging Toolkit and Eko Fika Toolkit.
Suggestion on timeline for your Plastic Free Week challenge:
- Kick starting event – a seminar on the problems related to plastics with an inspirational speaker as well as information about the concept of the Plastic Free Week
- The challenge is ongoing on a digital forum – participants try to not consume any plastics and discuss how it is going. It can last for a minimum of a week and maximum a month. Either you set up a separate group for the challenge or you keep the dialogue in your alumni network’s regular group/page.
- Closing event/meetup (optional). It may be fun to gather everyone who took part in the challenge to discuss how it went and how the lessons learned can be taken forward. You can find examples of Toolkits to use for that above.
Related toolkit
Instructions and manuals
Step by step manual (further down on this page)
Instructions/suggestions on the different parts of the Plastic Free Week
Building blocks
Instructions and suggestions to Plastic Free Week Toolkit
Plastic Free Week Guidelines Leaflet
Plastic Free Week – Useful Links (inspiration for organisers)
PPT presentation for kick off event (editable)
Plastic Free Photo Competition
Step-by-Step manual
- We suggest you find a working group of at least 3 people where you can have one responsible for the pre-event, one for the digital campaign and one for the closing event.
- Reach out to the Swedish embassy and let them know about your event.
- Find a suitable venue for your events. Maybe the Swedish embassy can host you? If you want to finish the challenge with a plogging event, have the weather in mind as it will be held outside.
- Set a starting and finishing date for your campaign and dates and times for your pre-event and closing event. Make sure you can send in the application for funding at least five weeks before the event date.
- If you are planning to do Plogging as a finishing event, please have a look at the toolkit “Plogging”.
- Investigate if there is any local organisation that you can partner up with who are
running similar campaigns that can maybe come by your first event and hold an
inspirational speech. Please see the list of relevant international organisations under
“building blocks” in the toolkit. - Read the more detailed “instructions” with suggestions on how you can shape the
launch event, the challenge, and the finishing event. - Choose an online forum where the participants can discuss and share their experience, thoughts and tips. Either you set up a separate facebook group or similar for the challenge or you keep the dialogue in your network’s regular group/page. Note that people should be able to join in on the challenge even if they cannot attend the starting event and/or the finishing event.
- Create a page for your event so that people can register. We suggest you use
confetti.events or a similar service but it can be a facebook event or google forms or any other service that you find suitable. - Post your event in the Sweden Alumni Activity Calendar.
- Send invitations to your members. If you need help with reaching out to new members, get in touch with SI who can help sending an email to their contacts.
- Prepare for the kick-off event – download the PPT from the toolkit and edit it as you
see fit and decide on the guidelines for the Plastic Free Week. - Live Plastic Free!
- Have an optional closing event.
- Send in the report to SI, not more than two weeks after the event.
How to apply
Submit an application form to apply for this event.
How to report
Here you find the reporting instructions.
Contact
For more information, contact alumni@si.se.