RETHINK KOINSEP - SOCIAL COOPERATIVE

RETHINK's nonprofit organization aims to raise awareness and empower young people to protect local biodiversity and exploit the natural environment for the benefit of the quality of life of local and wider society. And to emergence the wider rural environmental culture with innovative perspectives in the urban context. At the same time, it aims at creating creative interaction with the needs of young people and the expansion of a new sustainable daily life and cultural production, decentralized, impregnated with the principles of ecological wisdom and sustainability, social solidarity and respect for diversity. To promote direct democracy, -organized action and collaboration, the exploration and creation of management proposals for rural and rural production in a sustainable but also innovative perspectives. Through its actions, a decentralized artistic and social production is promoted through collective actions, with a central theme of the relationship between the young person and his/hers natural environment as well as the awareness of the preservation and protection. The organization contributes decisively to the creation of a multi-dimensional ecological stream built on respect for diversity, emphasis on creative cooperation, encouragement of local action and strengthening the concept of a sustainable society. RE:THINK's activities aspire to become an example to emulate and trigger traditional natural crops in urban and rural areas. Our activities poses issues such as recycling and reuse, which arose from a project that took place in 2009 under the name Re:Think. The team of staff and volunteers is working to help educate local communities and local authorities and improve their environmental behavior and sustainability through public actions, arts, workshops and excursions for children and young people. Very important for us is networking and the exchange of good practices, which we want to continue by participating in hosting of volunteers within ESC framework, who will help us to gain an in-depth view. In this context, our organization has established a network of 61 composting compactors in the city of Kalamata, which is composting a large amount of organic wastes (around 70 tonnes) and has also piloted composting in peripheral schools in Stoupa and Kampos, implementing at the same time informational workshops with universal participation from the school community. In addition, we have carried out dozens of actions to inform and raise awareness of the issues of management and reduction of organic waste, reuse of our materials, use of compost produced by our network and training neighborhoods in the self-management of the composting network. As far as the seed bank is concerned, our organization has succeeded in establishing seed exchange events, which are updating the seed bank and offering local farmers indigenous plant species, sowing and growing seasonal traditional / natural cultivation vegetables. The two networks, neighborhood composting and seed bank have as their basic idea and objective the ability of each citizen to manage his own food but also his organic residue in his everyday life and the simple consumer to be transformed into a food producer having own organically activated soil for own use. For the RE:THINK group, the ability to create a sustainable society requires first and foremost the possibility of reducing our footprint and assuming responsibility from every citizen for the self-management of both the food and the litter. RE:THINK has developed the educational program, "Culture of Growth", exploring and developing techniques of cultivation, creative re-use and cottage industry as a building tools of a daily life that is beautiful and harmonious with the natural processes.