November 2021 was filled with intensive learning for a group of 24 eco-activists from Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Russia and Uzbekistan. They came together in an online format to take part in the CommunityWay course, which was focused on working with local communities to solve environmental problems. 

Each of the 8 training sessions of the CommunityWay online course touched on different aspects of community work - from identifying target groups and how to engage them to behaviour change theory and building volunteer communities. The whole training and mentoring team of the course consisted of people with a lot of practical experience in community building, so during the course participants were able to learn about a lot of good (and not so good!) practices.

Irina Kravchenko, course participant commented:

"The course gave me very valuable knowledge about the involvement of people into environmental movement. I was able to formulate and understand my target audience, their feelings and needs. For the next six months I will try to involve people in various activities, related to tackle emissions from Kharkiv Koksokhim. And I will also try to set up a working group to deal specifically with this problem."

As a result of the course, activists with individual mentoring support created creative plans to work with their communities and some have even managed to start implementing them!

Comment of course participant Danil Tsoi:

"I liked the course, there was a lot of useful information. Especially valuable for me were the blocks on working with volunteers and implementing eco-initiatives. I also managed to get new technical knowledge thanks to working with Miro interactive board. I am already starting to apply the new knowledge in the work with my volunteer team and I think the first results are coming soon!"

Template for developing a community plan used by CommunityWay course participants