Energy saving at University of Bucharest – the campaigns continue
Article by Silvia Padure (Country Manager, University of Bucharest, Romania)
We are pleased to report that SAVES 2 is still going strong at the University of Bucharest (UoB). In December 2018 we had a number of big successes for the SSO campaign: we trained 12 students as ambassadors, ran 3 photo competitions, and had over 100 students take our online climate quiz. In terms of the SSO+ campaign: we trained 10 students as ambassadors and got nearly 500 students signed up to the campaign.
We set up some new exciting challenges for our students: in January we started a mini energy saving competition on the energy dashboard between four dormitories (we have 18 in total), recognizing the best one at the beginning of March. We have now started a second mini energy saving competition between five dormitories.
In the first weekend of March we organized a joint two-day event dedicated to both newly elected students living in dormitories (responsible for the relationship between students living in dormitories and administrative staff) and to SAVES 2 student ambassadors, to share knowledge and experiences. Two special guests, former students’ leaders – from another Romanian university – UBB Cluj explained how they manage students’ projects and how they engage students in extracurricular activities. The main areas discussed included: managing projects within dormitories, communication activities, and any feedback on dormitories (building repairs or improvements). Administrative staff also took part at the event in order to provide professional support on resource-related issues.
As part of the event, the SAVES 2 Country Manager explained the objectives of the SSO and SSO+ campaigns and how students could get involved. Students were also invited to become campaign ambassadors and were shown examples of how other students got involved. The latest winner of our Facebook competition took part in this event and was given their prize in front of all the participants. At the end of the two days, we gathered feedback from students encouraging them to suggest ideas for future events. As a result of student feedback, a schedule of visits was created, so that students were aware when the SAVES 2 team would be visiting them in the dormitories. These visits will take place in March.
Recently, we launched our second climate quiz of the year through social media. In addition to this, to attract more respondents, students that we met as part of our dormitory visits were encouraged to take part face-to-face- either electronically, or a printed version that we distributed.
The UoB SAVES 2 Facebook page is very active – almost every day our community finds new ideas and shares experiences about saving energy and money. We’ve gathered over 600 likes, and our community keeps on growing which is really encouraging.
Here is our final observation: team work is one of our most important achievements, not only among the project members, but between them and the engaged students. There is still a lot of room for improvement; to attract even more students to become ambassadors and engage in our competitions. We are all aware and continuing to move towards these goals!
Till we meet again: Let’s grow our community and learn, play and save energy together!
