Romania's Ateliere Fără Frontiere's amazing project 'educlick' combines two of today's burning topics – social justice and the circular economy - in an impressive way: it employs people from vulnerable backgrounds to refurbish waste electrical and electronic equipment. Once refurbished, the equipment is then donated to schools in disadvantaged areas. Costin Dragne from the NGO tells us more about the workshop and what the EESC Prize means for their work.

EESC info: What prompted you to launch your project ?

Costin Dragne: 'educlick', the first workshop of Ateliere Fără Frontiere, was founded in 2008 to address two social and environmental issues: the low employability chances that people from vulnerable backgrounds have and the high number of electrical and electronic equipment that ends up being wasted, without going through a recycling or reusing process.

The computer donation program that we run today with schools across the country, responds to these two social issues directly: it supports education in disadvantaged areas, and at the same time, it promotes the concept of reusing, a process that is by far more environmentally friendly, with a lower carbon footprint.

How was your project received? Did you have any feedback from the people you helped? (Can you give an example if you have?)

Schools, NGOs and public institutions that participated in our projects responded positively to our call. With their help, in the 13 years of our activity, we have formed a network of educational partners through which we have donated over 23 000 computers to more than 500 000 beneficiaries.
Many of the educational partners we work with drew our attention to other equipment they need in order to keep up with the digitalisation era: copiers, video projectors, interactive whiteboards, etc. Therefore, last year we started to diversify the activity of the workshop, trying to introduce new types of equipment into the process of refurbishment and donation to schools.

How do you intend to use this specific funding to provide more help to the community? Are you already planning new projects?

The team is already working on organising new projects to equip over 200 schools in Romania in 2022 with digital equipment refurbished in the 'educlick' workshop. This specific financing will be used for the implementation of these projects, especially for modernising the infrastructure of the refurbishment workshop (protective equipment, logistics material, utensils, etc.).

What advice would you give to other organisations to get results in activities and programs of this type?

We believe that our business model is one that can be easily replicated in any of the Member States of the European Union, and that is why we encourage organisations everywhere to form sustainable partnerships with private and public actors.

Collaborating with institutions and companies that want to have a positive impact on combating climate change and the digitalisation of education by reusing IT waste devices, is the most important step towards success in programs such as 'educlick'.

How optimistic are you about the prospects for the EU to achieve the Green Deal targets?

The positive environmental impact of civil society that we have seen from our colleagues in other countries has made us undoubtedly more confident in the EU's chances of achieving the Green Deal goals.

As long as we continue to promote and learn from the experience of other actors in the green sector, we have every chance of turning the EU into a model of environmentally friendly space.

Personally, winning third place at the Civil Society Prize increases our desire to contribute even more to this goal in the coming years, especially now that we know that we have support and encouragement at European level.