The Green Sun Association of Kézdivásárhely is trying to educate people in the area to an environmental friendly lifestyle for more than 2 and a half year. Through their traditional events they are strengthening not only the community spirit and team work, but also propagate the exploration of our values and preservation of our natural inheritance. The association continues it’s work in 2012 as well. We spoke about this theme with the president of the association, Attila Ráduly: – We are accustomed that the association organizes many events each year. Will you do so in this year as well? – Last year we had several successful projects, which –in the sign of continuity- we will organize in this year as well. In late September, together with our partners, we finished and inaugurated the green route called Nemere Trail, which needs to be promoted and developed continuously. By development I mean posting bulletin boards. Until now we have placed 5 bulletin boards in 3 languages – these contains the map of the 230 km long green route and a short description in 3 languages. Last year we published the Nemere Trail brochure of Kézdiszék, this year we will produce the brochure of Orbaiszék. We are getting ready to continue our successful photo-competition, this year the call will be child-centered with the title “Child in the Nature”. – The Green Days of Spring and the oil collecting campaign is already incorporated in the public consciousness. – Indeed, we are starting to prepare the ground for the 3rd release of Green Days of Spring, as we traditionally keep it on the last weekend of March, connected with the Earth Hour event. More and more people join every year. Of course, a coordinated oil collecting event will be organized this year too. We collect seasonally not only oil, but used batteries, CD-, DVD disks and paper, too. 18th February is the next date when people can get rid of the used ménage oil in an environmental-friendly way. Our other plan is to place bird feeders made from recycled materials in Kézdiszék. This will be a long process, we have to involve in the implementation as many partners and people as we can, in order that local people feel the idea as their own. – The Green Day Association is an independent, non-profit environmental organization, where members carry out their duties voluntarily. How many greens there are in Kézdivásárhely? – The association counts 16 members and 20 volunteers at county level, and we can say globally too, because many of them are working abroad. Many kind of people come to us, the age-group is various, we are not specifically a youth organization. From February we are opening up for foreign countries also, we will receive a Latvia (Ieva Brikmane) and an Armenian (Gayane Asatryan) volunteer through a European project. They will help us for 11 months. This is important because we never received foreign volunteers in Kézdiszék before, for such a long time. Through them the whole life of the association will change. From now on, with regard to our guests, the meetings will be held in English language. One of our new year’s priority, to work together with more foreign partners, will be very useful, because saving our environment has no borders. We have been preparing this deliberative since last year, our portal’s (www.zoldnap.info) articles are available in 3 languages – Hungarian, Romanian and English.

Author: Zsófia Bartha Translated by Péter Csilla The interview was published in the Székely Hírmondó Friday’s edition.