Storm

When the new year starts, a lot of people have new years resolutions. For me one of my resolutions was trying to challenge myself to change my behaviour in a more sustainable way. This is one of the reasons why I joined Veganuary(eating vegan for the whole month of january), but that is not where this blog is about. This blog is about an initiative called '52 weken duurzaam'(52 weeks of sustainability). The initiative posts a challenge each week on their website and sends out an email to the people joining(right now more than 13.000 people are participating). With these challenges they want you to find out which change towards sustainability makes your life more fun. Everyone can make use of the challenges in a different way and build a more sustainable lifestyle on the changes. Together with the challenges they post some small steps you can take in the sustainable direction but also bigger steps for people that already live in a more sustainable way. Next to that they post what the effect of this change can have on yourself and for the environment.

The first challenge(last week) was to eat all the leftovers and old products in your cabinets. This way you will have a better overview of what you already have and know what to buy. It is also a very nice and clean start of the year. A lot of people searched out their cabinets, defroze their freezer and came up with a lot of creative ideas to cook with these leftovers. I personally do not have that much space in my kitchen but I did look into my shelf in the fridge and made sure that I knew what I had in there before I went to the supermarket and bought stuff I already have.

Next to the website of 52 weken duurzaam and their weekly mail with the challenge they also created a facebook group. In this group a lot of participants send posts about how they are interpreting the challenges and ask questions to one another. I personally think that creating such a community around a challenge is the best way to keep inspiring each other. While scrolling through my timeline last week I saw a lot of people posting nice recipes, asking for recipes with specific products but most of all people having fun together with participating in the challenges. In times like this it is harder to connect with people in real life and therefore it is even more important to do this online and reach out! 

I am going to participate in this week's challenge ‘loop je warm’(walk until you get warm) and try to move more this week. For example walking a bit longer to get your veggies from the market or a store that has more plastic free products. Just like last week's challenge everyone takes another turn with it but we are still connected through the same theme and goal!

Check out their website and facebook group:

https://52wekenduurzaam.nl/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/495361991442593 

The challenges and e-mails are in dutch, but if you are an international and still want to know where the challenge is about you can reach out to me!