THE NEW ARTICLE - "THEY PLANNED THEIR FUTURE...""

Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come." - Chinese proverb

Did you know? Forests and wooded land cover 42% of the EU's surface. They provide more than 2 million jobs, protect soil and human settlements and regulate freshwater supplies. Forests act like 'sinks' that absorb carbon dioxide and even regulate local and regional weather. Europe's forests face huge threats from global warming: fires, droughts and forest diseases. Some trees are expected to disappear from certain areas. Can we protect European forests and prepare them for climate change? It is a really difficult question.

The rapid climate change endangers the European forests, extreme events such as storms, forest fires and droughts are expected to become much more common. Some forests type will shrink dramatically, some tree types may disappear in some areas in Europe. Did you know that Beech is expected to disappear in the Mediterranean zone and production of mushrooms and herbs will be drastically reduced throughout Europe. Yes, it is true! And what can we do? A lot!

Read what the assistants of the MEP Peter Slovák did to support the environment on 20th May 2011 - the day which is dedicated to Biological Diversity and also all the year 2011 is the International Year of Forests. They realized it is time to act, so they visited all the schools in the town of Levice and informed the students about the special day of 20th May.

The MEP´s assistants joined online ENO Programme which invited schools all over the world to celebrate this event by planting trees. Together with their schoolmates the MEP´s asistants planted several trees in the area of their school. This act has contributed for our environment by planted trees and made young people think of their future. These young people have understood the more they care for their nature, the better life conditions they can expect in the future.

A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love... he who plants trees gathers future...

A NEW ARTICLE OF THE MEP PETER SLOVAK - GETTING RID OF PROBLEMS

The more a man wants to feel comfort, the more he needs to invent. The more he invents, the more he produces. The more he produces, the more he pollutes. Since the industrial revolution the mankind has been coming up with new technologies, which effected nature more seriously with every innovation.







The main evil standing behind this is toxic waste. Not the thing itself, but the way people think about it, how they handle it. By people I mean the companies and countries that are profiting before creating it in the first place, but later, when its time to make expenses to take care of it they act like it has nothing to do with them.

EU estimates its yearly production of waste for around 1,3 billion tons of which 40 million tons is toxic waste. Percentually it doesn't look horrifying, but the total amount of toxicity is alarming. Another concerning fact is categorizing of toxic waste. Just think of asbestos classified as highly poisonous and forbidden substance. Working on it's removal is not yet finished, even after decades of effort. If a wide-spread substance now considered harmless gets on a list of those, which are dangerous it will shatter all statistics. On the other hand, technologies are being developed to more carefully and effectively process toxic waste. That is at least one thing that allows us not to be pessimistic over perspectives of our environment.

Massive industrialization and economic growth of China and India brings up gloomy prognosis. Promised effort of these Asian giants to catch up with western world in economical efficiency and living standard brings also other questions. Are these countries able and willing to care about their waste responsibly? Every year the amount of toxic waste grows proportionally with its GDP. China became the industrial workshop for Western countries in last two decades.

The world economy has its own self protecting mechanisms. However, they do not seem sufficient. Roughly estimated 170 countries have signed (lot of them still hasn't ratified) Basel convention from 1989, which forbids exporting the toxic waste to the territory of signatory states without their permission or without the ability to process it safely.

The addition from year 1995 has toughened the statutes by directly prohibiting the export of toxic waste to developing countries. And still it hasn't covered up each hole in convention. EU has pledged in Lomé Convention not to export it's toxic waste to Africa. Along with that, states of Africa have committed in Bamako Convention in 1991 to refuse such offers.

Many of developing countries though do not want to give up their opportunity to process each category of waste from richer west, including toxic. They often guarantee, that they are technically able to do that, without having moral remorse when not fulfilling those guarantees. That applies not only to the poorest countries in equator Africa, but also India.

India has a long-term tradition in disposing waste, imported on huge cargo ships, in docks of Alang, state Gujarat. Local docks specialize on scraping old ships and are achieving global importance. Thousands of Indians found jobs there, which is to often take apart large wrecks by hands. These wrecks are full of various toxic substances. Different kinds of shipped garbage are transported to near areas, where hundreds of another companies and thousands of unqualified men, women and children deal with sorting the waste.

When western countries import waste to developing countries to put it on dumps, just to make it happen, they cover it with purpose of recycling to legalize it. It sound clever, ecological and in accordance with resolutions about keeping economic growth. There is a competition between China and India, and even African countries for earning opportunities from recycling. Even if they know, what they are not able to handle, will end up on illegal dumps.

This issue has no short-term solutions and economically developed countries will face a dilemma, whether or not putting their toxic waste away easily and cheaply by exporting it to developing world. More challenging and more expensive alternative is aiming on real recycling at home and even in developing overseas countries. Recycling business is predestined to grow. Even companies from smaller states can participate, including Slovakia, especially when they come up with technological innovations and new practical concepts.

On 12 May 2011 assistants of the MEP Peter Slovák, students of Business Academy in Levice Slovakia together with their partners had a videoconference. They aimed their attention at volunteering. They prepared a great and rich programme:

PROGRAMME of the videoconference:

1. Presentation : BE VOLUNTEER

2. Presentation and discussion: VOLUNTEERING

3. Presentation: VOLUNTEERING IN SLOVAKIA

4. Film made by Slovak students about women and volunteering

5. Support to suffering people after the earhquake and tzunami in Japan

6. Discussion

7. Conclusion

Discussing came to this conclusion -

volunteering is a great kind of an academy to learn about life and its hardships. Volunteer work doesn’t offer and wages to volunteer, and that’s why you can not push people into this. But i tis true, the more you volunteer and help other, the more life credits you will get. Volunteering is a great thing which makes us better people willing to help. Who knows, when we will need help and if somebody helps us it will be great! This is what volunteering is about!!!

CLIMATE CHANGE CAMPAIGN videofilm of Peter Slovák

peter

COLLECTION OF TOYS FOR CHILDREN IN NEED HAS BEEN FINISHED

THE ASSISTANTS OF THE MEP decided to help children in the town Levice and organize the collection of toys and books for the children who come from poor families or live in orphanages.
They collected a big amount of toys and books and speread happines among these children and made them happy :)

EARTH DAY - A NEW ACTIVITY OF THE MEP PETER SLOVAK

The Earth Day
In 1963, former Senator of the USA Gaylord Nelson began to worry about our planet. He wondered why more people weren't trying to solve these problems. He talked to other lawmakers and to the President. They decided that the President would go around the country and tell people about these concerns. He did, but still not enough people were working on the problem. Then, in 1969, Senator Nelson had another idea. He decided to have a special day to teach everyone about the things that needed changing in our environment. He wrote letters to all of the colleges and put a special article in Scholastic Magazine to tell them about the special day he had planned.
Earth Day is a day that is intended to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's natural environment,it was first held on April 22, 1970. While this first Earth Day was focused on the United States, it became international in 1990 and there were organized events in 141 nations. Earth Day is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network and is celebrated in more than 175 countries every year. Numerous communities celebrate Earth Week, an entire week of activities focused on environmental issues.
People all over the world make promises to help the environment. Everyone got involved and since then, Earth Day has spread all over the planet. People all over the world know that there are problems we need to work on and this is our special day to look at the planet and see what needs changing. Isn't it great?
One person had an idea and kept working until everyone began working together to solve it. See what happens when people care about our world – our planet will be greener and also healthier. A Levice organized on Earth Day ssistants of the MEP Peter Slovák – Michal Adami and Matúš Kotora organized interesting activities for pupils of 4th Elementary school in their home town Levice. There were a lot of various and interesting activities organized for these children.
The pupils were doing activities to clean their environment, they were picking the litter around their school and surroundings, they were learning about separating and reusing the litter, they learnt about the recycling process and much more. They learnt a lot of new information about our planet, fauna, flora, environment issues and what kills our nature. There were a lot of competitions and knowledge quizes organized for pupils, children were painting environmental pictures on the pavements.
Both assistants of the MEP Peter Slovák and Elementary school pupils were glad to organize this great event and it is sure they did something good for their planet, environment they live in. They made first steps to help our planet to become healthier.

THE NEW ARTICLE OF THE MEP PETER SLOVAK."THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE..."

The best things in life are free…
Who pleasure gives, shall joy receive…
Think about being a volunteer! There are several definitions of volunteering and a volunteer itself. Generaly a volunteer (latin - voluntarious – willing) is a person who invests his free time, energy, knowledge and abilities to do some kind of activity without being paid for it. Reward for volunteering is spiritual, what means that a volunteer gets the character and professional growth, good feelings, sometimes new friendships and life experiences.
You can be a volunteer almost everywhere, you can help people in your neighbourhood, the area where you live or work, anywhere. For example, you can help your sick neighbour with shopping, tidying up in front of your flat, house or in the park. Everybody has abilities and energy to do some kind of voluntary activity. It depends only on how willing and able the person is to do a certain service.
Another way of voluntary activities are organized by the non-governmental, public and non- profitable organizations or schools and churches. So that we can divide volunteering into severel categories:
• Volutary activities: various irregular activities of people for various organizations based on verbal agreement.
• Voluntary services: activities with clear time bounds, aim, content, tasks, legislation and social protection based on verbal or written agreement.
• Voluntary self-help: mutual help beetwen neighbours, group of children and youth and interest groups that is based on reciprocal agreement out of the organization.
Voluntary organizations are organizations that are based on voluntary work and cannot operate without volunterees. Voluntary organizations engage various types of areas of voluntering according to aimed groups for example: social culture, ecology tasks and so on. Then they are devided according to local, regional, national and worldwide level and according to time of the activity it could be one-shot, regular longterm or occasional co-operation. Based on the aimed group and area of work they make conditions and rules collaborating with volunteers. Altogether they organize volunteersthemselves and thein activities. The perfect example of voluntary organization is GREENPEACE.
There are barriers of volunteering. Voluntary work and activities are still realized by our public as something special. The main barrier of developing the voluntary work is passivity during searching and gaining volunteers. Some other barriers are:
bad or not sufficient organization of volunteers, no demand for volunteers, concerns from injury, load pattern and much more..
And what supports volunteers? There are a lot of supporting moments:
• They have feeling that they are evaluating
• They have hope for a change and progress
• They gain appreciation from public either personally
• They realize that they help mean something
• They have feeling of fellowship and teamwork

• And much more...
In these times of wars,world hunger,natural disasters etc. necessity for voluntary work is much more noticable than in the past. This is what the EU realizes and set the year 2011 as the European Year of Volunteering. The EU is trying to mobilize people by doing campaigns which inform how to become a volunteer and what advangates the status of the volunteer has. If you are able and have a chance to do some voluntary work – try it. You will see that even the good feeling of helping someone is worth it! The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.