by Anne van Oorschot, Environment Team Co-Chair (AWC The Hague)
While most FAWCO members recognize the importance of environmental problems and issues, very few clubs actually organize any environmental activities to highlight those concerns. The Environment Team encouraged clubs to change that, and provided a lot of big and small activity ideas last fall. We heard back from three clubs about the activities they planned – all very different ‒ and we’d like to share that information with you. Hopefully, you will get inspired to highlight the environment at your club as well!
Mary Stange is the FAWCO Rep of AWC Bogotá, a club with 280 members, and she writes about two fun events carried out by her club:
“AWC Bogotá recognized Earth Day with two different events this year! First, our Vegetarian Cooking Group held our monthly lunch with a 'green' theme ‒ all dishes were inspired by green ingredients. This group is a chance for members to prepare a vegetarian meal together, enjoy each other's company and share vegetarian recipes. We enjoyed dishes such as a pea pesto and burrata crostinis, lemon-garlic Brussels sprouts, eggplant tacos with herbs, and even matcha green tea ice cream.
Additionally, we held a brand new tea party fundraiser in honor of Earth Day, which raised $300 for our club! Members enjoyed a high tea while discussing what we do in our daily lives to be more eco-conscious. We put our tips on an 'idea tree' to show how our everyday actions can impact the world around us. From reducing our light and energy consumption to replacing single-use items with reusable alternatives, these ladies brought excellent ideas to the table and were able to share and learn from each other 
to make small, yet impactful changes, We even played an eco-themed trivia game filled with fun and eye-opening facts about climate change, biodiversity loss, and energy consumption. The event was a complete success and our members walked away begging for another tea party just like it!”
June Bechara is the FAWCO Rep of AWC Lebanon, a smaller club with 68 members. This club took Earth Day on April 22 seriously and planned several ways of getting members to think of the planet and see how they could reduce waste in their lives and minimize environmental damage:
“In our April Newsletter, we got advice from some of our club members on what they do in their own homes to help reduce household waste and prevent pollution. This tied into a talk given at the general meeting by Annette Bejani, one of our members, who is a self-proclaimed Zero-Waster. She gave us some very interesting insights into how she achieved an almost zero waste household in Lebanon. What was especially insightful was that she was able to translate general guidelines to our specific needs in Lebanon so that everyone would be able to copy her example.
Since there was so much interest in being ecologically aware and finding ways to also become zero wasters, we organized a further look at where to find products and materials to do so, and the American Women’s Club visited EcoSouk in April. Joselyn Kehdy, the founder, welcomed us to EcoSouk, an eco-friendly store whose motto is ‘bala plastic’ which means 'without plastic.' Kehdy sells products in her store that are alternatives to supermarket products. Natural health and beauty items are available in bulk. Customers are encouraged to bring their own glass containers to refill them. This outing ended with the ladies going to Luna’s Kitchen, which is a vegan cafe with an extensive menu of delicious entrees as well as scrumptious desserts.
The theme of being eco-friendly and helping to turn garbage into useful items was carried over into May when we had another speaker, Dr. Laila Zahed, who told us how she started the Jellyfish Organization with a group of Syrian refugee women. 
Unfortunately, plastic bags have become a big problem across Lebanon because of its lack of recycling initiatives and waste management infrastructure. Creative initiatives were urgently needed. One of the first such interventions in the country comes from Jellyfish, which has developed a rather ingenious solution, even if modest in scale, relative to the plastic bag epidemic: the bags become the base material for traditional, though disappearing arts and crafts such as hand knitting, weaving, and crochet. It is a social and environmental venture aimed at making various items from used plastic bags, thereby avoiding that they end up in nature, and ensuring much-needed revenue to the women involved in the project. There are currently over 14 women involved, including Syrian, Lebanese and African underprivileged women living in Lebanon. All the revenue from the project goes back to the women, while Dr. Zahed only helps them with ideas, sales, promotion and quality control.
Becoming fully aware of the problems in Lebanon with waste and pollution is not difficult because we experience it every day. So for our members, epically the city dwellers, to escape a little and enjoy an unspoiled countryside, a walk in nature was scheduled as well as a hike up the mountain to the Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon. We did not take the easy way, which is a winding drive up to the Marian shrine and a pilgrimage site in Lebanon, but went up from the back of the mountain along a steep trail that threaded its way to the top. We want to feel nature to be able to preserve it better and not lose hope that our efforts will accomplish a small rethink in the Lebanese ‘throw-away mentality’ in order to preserve the beauty of this country.”
Marie-Bénédicte Luxem is the FAWCO Rep of AWC Zurich, a large club with 240 members. 
She made the environment a real priority at their club this past year and started it all off with the screening of Al Gore’s latest movie, An Inconvenient Sequel – Truth to Power. Under the motto, “FAWCO Goes Green” (complete with a fabulous logo!), three monthly conferences were organized with external guest speakers on environmental topics:
April 10: Our Planet and Our Health: How can we each make a positive impact
May 17: Fridays for Future: What can we learn from Generation Z
June 12: How to Reduce our Daily Waste. Guest speaker: Zero Waste Switzerland
All the conferences were free of charge and were opened to members as well as non-members. The conferences attracted a different crowd, plus potential new members for the club, and with the cash bar, they made a bit of money for the club as well.
