#DARETOCHALLENGE X GEN S
Hello, we are Palmyra, Triantafilli, Merle, Nevi and Maria Eleni and we are the creators of the Gen S Open Studio, which stands for Generation Sustainability.
MEET THE TEAM
We believe that sustainability should be intergenerational and that is why we are working towards making a real impact through our events which are online as well as offline — to reach as many people as possible. When we first got together in our Seminar “ Social Issues, Social Innovation and Corporate Responsibility”, led by Betty Tsakarestou at Panteion University, we decided on tackling the goal 12 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations: Sustainable Consumption and Production.
We were shocked to learn that almost 14 % of the food produced globally was lost before reaching the retail sector and the total amount of raw materials extracted to meet final consumption demands in between 2000–2017 rose to 40% per capita. Electronic Waste lays at 7.4 kg per person from which only 1.7 kg is managed in an environmentally sustainable manner. These numbers are expected to grow. The media and many companies are constantly talking about a sustainable way of life and we — as individuals- try to orient our practices and ideas towards this direction. But how do we manage to integrate sustainability into economic growth, consumption and production personally? This question drove us further. We as a team decided we wanted to make an impact locally that has the possibility to expand globally: Creating a studio that is not only in the neighborhood but also available online through workshops, talks and videos. We did not want to only tackle one area because for us a sustainable lifestyle is a wholesome, circular experience. We decided to concentrate on five topics, as we are five members: Fashion, Art, Planting, Cooking and Circular Economy. We as an organization want to push the processes of consuming consciously and therefore more sustainable towards the individual. The outcome is not only a new product, it is the knowledge and first- hand experience of a person experiencing sustainability in different sections of their life. May it be what their body consumes, what they wear, what they use or with what materials they surround themselves. We want to create a place where recycling, education, creativity and meeting friends and new acquaintances merges into one.
Starting from there we found potential online competitors like Skillshare and the Fashion Open Studio, but either the focus was not on sustainability or the target group was a very different one from ours. We realized that there was a gap: No initiative was tackling the SDG’s specifically, there was little room to connect to likeminded people and a big focus was on art and fashion rather than an overall thought of a circular economy. We saw our chance in that, our solutions: Creating a studio that is easily accessible and connects to various social media platforms to reach a wide range of people, focusing on the networking aspect, combining five different topics on one platform/ in one studio to give people everything at hand (and make sustainability effortless) for their everyday life and overall concentrating on education in combination with spreading awareness.
We created a website , which indicates our identity , beliefs and goals.We communicate and promote our innovational hub with the social media platform of Instagram. We made stories , posts , and stories interactions with the audience in order to increase their engagement to our social platform. Promoting all our events , in social media , we advertise our workshops, targeting to expand our possible audience.
So we created a persona based on the characteristics most of our audience members have. The persona would be a 22 year old student , who is also an activist and loves nature . She is helping clean up beaches every weekend , she is donating in animal organizations and she is also a member of a local planting organization. She is also very interested in biological and vegetarian cooking and eating . She reached out to us because she thought we would be very helpful in promoting this lifestyle to more people through our social media and our platform that we built in order to help people communicate with each other and share ideas and tips. They will also be able to cooperate with each other to promote their individual work . Creating a community will give to each member more power and all together can do some significant change.
We discussed with friends that we already know that have some sensitive minds on the matter and also with people that reached out to us when we opened our accounts. We took some really important insights about what our audience is looking forward to gaining from our studio and why they want to participate. To start off , most people think that education is very important . There aren’t many reliable sources of information and ways to act in order to have a more sustainable life. We thought it would be a real necessity that we educate and inform people about what sustainability is, how did we come to where we are now and why is it necessary to join sustainability and what are the consequences to humanity. We gained some really helpful and interesting education on the matter during our work , that’s why we decided to share it with our audience before starting taking action through our studio. Only through understanding the problems and consequences of them we’ll be able to take action .
We also understood that it is really important to share some easy and everyday ways to be more sustainable and have a sustainable lifestyle . By showing ways to alternate and reuse old clothes or things that we don’t need , sharing sustainable cooking and planting ways we are coming closer to that goal . We all talk theoretically about sustainability but we find it difficult to insert these ways in our everyday life. We found some easy ways and decided to share them with our audience through our workshops. It is not difficult to make a turn and adopt a sustainable lifestyle. It might look strange at the beginning but then it will be very easy to do.
We also took some insights about what else does our audience find important and with what else we could deal. Many pointed out meat and dairy consumption and how this affects our environment . This is also a very important aspect of our everyday life , so as many pointed it out , we decided we should also try and inform our audience more about the matter. Our audience and especially the younger members will probably have a lot of answers and will want to discover more about all aspects of sustainability. That’s why it is important to us , that we try and listen to them as much as we can and see what is more interesting to them and what else they want to discover.
GEN S X ROMANTSO: OUR FIRST ACTIVATION
We wanted our launching event to be offline so we could talk to the people, ask them individually why they came and how they heard about us — and to promote our online workshop. Throughout the planning of what our launching event will be, we came across some ups and downs. We started with an event regarding sustainable arts and fashion, but it fell through because of some worries regarding Covid-19, then we had a project regarding sustainable planting but it could have only happened later on after the deadline for our launching event (so we will maybe do it later on). In the end we settled on an event that combined sustainable fashion and circular economy: We were doing a Swap Party. Everybody has something at home that they are not using anymore, something that is there but makes one rather unhappy then happy because it is more a vice. Throwing something away is not a solution, it is a waste. But giving away is something beautiful — and getting something you like in return is connecting this something with a beautiful deed. Everytime you wear it you can think of the person you got it from, of the piece that you gave the other person and the joy this person felt when trying it on. We wanted to connect people to have this experience. To see that something they themselves don’t wear or like anymore can make someone else really happy and therefore promote a circular, sustainable way of treating products.
With this idea we were thinking about the location. Outside would be too dependent on the weather, we concluded. If we want to do it inside we would need a cooperator and that holds an opportunity: more publicity. We decided on Romantso, a cultural center as well as an incubator for start-up companies within the creative industry, perfect fit as we thought. The target group of them would fit ours. The boss and event manager were directly convinced of the idea and were even ready to engage with more: speakers and music — make a whole day out of it. Due to too little time we had to settle on the Swap Party at itself but there are opportunities and ideas for future events. The only challenge we had to face was that normally someone needs to take up all the responsibility for insurance reasons. In the end, one of us gave her details but we also got a bonus due to being from a university. Setting the event up was very easy which was surprising to us — why haven’t we done something like that before as individuals? But we also realized that saying that we are coming from a university and doing it within the framework of a seminar helped.
Now we had to promote it: In facebook Groups, On instagram, in Erasmus WhatsApp and Telegram groups and of course in the social bubbles of our members.
the concept is as follows: creating a space where everyone could bring items they no longer need or no longer use from clothes to books and give them a second chance. At the same time bringing an item he could get any other without money. This idea seemed very interesting to us because we identified with the idea of the consumer who has a lot of clothes or accessories that are not needed and they remain on the shelf, while at the same time we identified with our frequent choice to buy something as cheaply as possible in a thrift shop for example, by investing in fast fashion products
we started the search for a place where not only our project will be accepted but at the same time have a philosophy close to ours. We ended up in Bios romatso, a cultural multi-space that from time to time hosts various innovative and creative, events, exhibitions, speeches and workshops. Now all that was needed was the good mood of the visitors and the items they did not want. We promoted the event by all means and the day has arrived. We were surprised that many people were interested not only to exchange their clothes or their old things but to learn more about the idea behind it. We were open to visitors, talked about the idea of Gen S and received a very positive response. It was really created an environment where people with common interests and philosophy came together sharing information, ideas, clothes and experiences in a creative, ethical and sustainable way. In fact, there was interest from the side of the visitors but also from the side of Romantso to repeat the event in the future. For us this was still an element of success and a tempting proposition to continue to maintain the Gen S studio with actions like this.
An experience, unprecedented for us was crowned with success and gave us a push for innovation and development of the concept of sustainability.
We wanted to create not one but two activities that will let people know who we really are and what we want to achieve. From the begging we decided that GEN S will be a studio with activities both in the online and real life environment. After the swap party which was a face to face event it was time to create an online activity and we decided to create an online workshop that will be aiming on few things such as:1) get to know more about our audience 2) let them see clearly what generation sustainability really is and finally 3) Have fun and open a conversation around the matter of sustainability . We decided to collaborate with a Greek museum located in Alexandroupolis called Ethnological museum of Thrace because we discovered that they are not only very creative and open minded but they have done many activities that have to do with the SDG goal we choose, sustainable consumption and production. We got in contact with Valentina Socratous who is the cultural manager of the museum and we presented Gen S our studio, who we are, our mission statement, how it started, our ideas and dreams for the future of Gen S. Valentina was « in » from the start and just like that we started designing our first online workshop. We let her have control of this workshop as we show how experienced she was and we made sure she felt like we were there for anything she needs we were in charge of the communication and promotion of this workshop. creating posters, inviting people, promoting the event online (instagram, Facebook closed groups ) and in real life (communicating it throughout our friends and people who we thought would be the perfect participants for this workshop ). We managed to create personal contact with all participants texting them one by one letting them know more about this workshop and sending them aesthetically pleasing and needed reminders so that they will not forget about our workshop. The name of the workshop was Emotional Sustainability and it was an online, experimental, interactive workshop combining art and self discovery practices. The main goal of this workshop was to understand and have more clarity about the things we are fighting for such us sustainability. An experiential art workshop dealing with the concept of awareness of the links between our emotions and values in relation to personal and social sustainability. How definitive are our inner thoughts and fears in how socially active we end up becoming? Is being an influencer the new type of activist? The participants are going to be called to use a familiar tool, their smartphones to create a photo collage giving a holistic view of their imagery of the world. The main point was to make the participants feel uncomfortable but in a way that will motivate them to search deeper and to become better. We wanted this workshop to include up to 15 people because we knew from the start that the main goal was to get deep and communicate emotions which wouldn’t have been easy if there were more people.
The workshop was a success. We achieved one of our main goals as an innovational hub and that was to bring together different people with one main thing in common and that was their love for the planet and their need to create a more sustainable future for all of us. We discussed important topics and we searched deeper discovering things such as : Why are we using social media as a form of activism ? What do we think is ethical ? What is sustainability for us ? . All people were participating actively sharing their thoughts and opinions creating and following Valentinas tasks and actively listening one to another. We had the chance to collect precious information about the fears the wants the needs the identities of our Gen S members that we will for sure use and keep in mind when creating our next event, workshop, activity. At the end of the workshop people got the chance to give feedback share their thoughts (how they felt, what did they like, what would they change, what was the most precious thing they learnt ) .This part was our favorite because it all suddenly became a reality to us that we have done something real with real people and we impacted the lives of 10 people in the best way possible.
#Lightthewaybetheimpact
Gen s is an innovational hub created by 5 young women who come from different backgrounds and different parts of the world one main thing has brought them together and that is sustainability. We all know that when women thrive humanity thrives
2020 changed our lives with a pandemic whose consequences will be felt for decades. We all know now that we cannot simply go back to the way we were. This shock to the global system offers us a chance to reset our priorities and build our resilience across the planet. women are already showing the way.
We are glad to have had the chance to take part in the #daretochallenge created by a strong and inspiring woman ms Betty Tsakarestou who has brought and continues to bring change to this world every day. One thing we learnt was that every time you hear the first no it’s the best time, then you come up with an even better idea !
And just like that everything became reality it was a domino effect for us . Step by step, always thinking about our values and goals, the people that we want to affect and to talk to ,the way we want to make an impact in this world, we created Gen S and we shared it with not only the digital world but the real world as well.Our vision from the start was not a temporary success of a small Studio we named GEN S ,but something bigger. We aim to put sustainability at the core of Gen S and we aim to make responsible choices in everything we do. For us, this is the only way forward.We’re at a point where we’re accelerating our speed of change. Our mindset is to consider social and environmental impacts of every decision we make, and fully integrate our sustainability ambitions into our business strategy. So that responsibility becomes part of every single one of our everyday decisions. “We envision the GEN S community as an awakened, switched on community of collaborators with their hearts in this mission, serving as an inspiration and example for the rest of the world.”
Project Manager
Dr. Betty Tsakarestou, Ph.D Betty Tsakarestou Associate Professor & Head of Advertising and Public Relations Lab.
Participants:
Palmyra Giannakidi
