NEWS

• The plastic bottle breaks down in 500 years;

• By 2050, the ocean will have more plastic than fish;

• The largest plastic island in the ocean is 13 times bigger than Bulgaria;

• The human population produces about 300 million tons of plastic each year. More than 8 million of these junk ends their ocean voyage and 78% are not recycled;

• Through the food chain the plastic reaches our plate. Are you a vegan? Don’t worry, the water you drink is also flavored with microplastic.

"Pogging in Sofia" is an initiative promoted by volunteers from the Bulgarian Sports Development Association who are interested in supporting good practices for the sustainable environment of Sofia through sport. The aim of this initiative is to reduce the amount of garbage that is located in the area of the National Sports Academy "Vasil Levski", which is home to the international volunteers during their stay in Bulgaria. We believe that together with other citizens of Sofia, we have been able to raise awareness of the implementation of good practices in the care of the community in which we are living in. We believe that sport, alongside volunteering, is the best way to work together and create friendships for life. Each of us can be part of solving serious problems like pollution. The initiative was carried out within the frame of "YouthUP, SportUP" - Erasmus+ European Voluntary Service, coordinated by "Bulgarian Sports Development Association".

The event was held on 20 September 2018 and was intended to lay the foundations for a new trend in Bulgaria and also to give a start to the forthcoming European Sports Week to be held in the Member States of the European Union and 11 non-member countries of EU in the period 23-30 September 2018.

A few hours before the plogging initiative the volunteers also held a volunteer workshop YouthUP, SportUP at the National Sports Academy "Vasil Levski", in which more than 40 young people took part in. During the meeting, the overall framework of the Erasmus+ program, as well as the opportunities it provides in the area of education, youth and sport, was presented, focusing on the opportunities for involving young people in them.
The Erasmus+ Education, Training, Youth and Sport program started in 2014 and it supports activities in the fields of school education, higher education, vocational education and training, adult and youth education. It aims to build robust partnerships between education and business, to promote innovation and competitiveness, while promoting employment, with a special focus on combating youth unemployment.

This year ARBS is implementing the YouthUP, SportUP project, which aims to enable four international volunteers to gain experience in the intercultural environment and to learn about the opportunities offered by European youth policies. Representatives of Portugal, Slovakia and Bosnia and Herzegovina also took part in the meeting and participants from the town of Sandanski had the opportunity to receive first-person information on the opportunities that the European Union provides, as well as the benefits of volunteering for local communities in particular. YouthUP, SportUP is co-funded under the Erasmus + program, administered in Bulgaria by the Center for Human Resource Development and is realized in 2018.