WHAT IS THE CONNECTION BETWEEN PREJUDICE AND CIGARETTE BUTTS IN “REZALIŠTE”?.

The Association for the Protection of Nature and the Environment and the Promotion of Sustainable Development of Argonauts is hosting another youth exchange that is currently taking place in Šibenik. This time, young people from Portugal, Poland, Macedonia, Croatia, and Iceland gathered to raise awareness of their own prejudices and stereotypes and put an end to them. “Do you See ME ?!” project brought together young people from Europe to share their knowledge and experiences of stereotypes and prejudices from their countries, but also those who felt it in their own skin.

What prejudices do Croats have towards each other, which towards other nationalities? How hard is it to break a prejudice? What is the role of the media in spreading or stopping them? These are just some of the issues on which the participants of the youth exchange gave their own opinions, stimulated discussion, and tried to draw conclusions in order to jointly create new attitudes.

It was difficult to get around another prejudice that young people often encounter, and that is that they only create waste and are not environmentally aware. In order to prove that this prejudice is to blame, the participant was cleaned of part of the Rezalište beach in Brodarica after the biggest storm. As it usually happens, when one problem is solved, another is reached. This is exactly what happened here – in just half an hour, the exchange participants collected as many as 3,251 cigarette butts !! And at first, the butts were almost invisible…

During the action, while the storm forced the participants to leave cigarette butts for some new generations, we learned about the prejudices that campers face: “Just this morning we collected cigarette butts and we are glad to see that someone else cares as much as we do. We often come across the opinion that campers leave only garbage behind, so we try to change that prejudice and always clean up behind what we did not create, “said a German tourist.

“Each of us has prejudices. That prejudice can sometimes protect a person, it can. However, it is necessary to talk about them, vocalize them, because only then will we be able to understand the other side, and then break the prejudice and take a new position, “concluded the exchange participants. During the exchange, the participants also created interesting posters as part of the campaign on social networks, which will be published in the coming days on the FB page of the Argonauta Youth Exchange.