Renewable energy at Bay Street

Nature Trust Youths and Falko (Zghazagh BirdLife Malta) have jointly organised an awareness event at Bay Street to promote renewable energy in the Maltese Islands. Through this event both NGOs are calling for a greater national effort to introduce and sustain the use of renewable energy in electricity generation.

The Bay Street event formed part of an international campaign aimed to promote the use of renewable energies across Europe. The international campaign was co-ordinated by Youth and Environment Europe (YEE), a federation of European youth environmental NGOs to which both youth NGOs are affiliated.

The event consisted of illustrated exhibits, children's drawings, promotional stands by the two NGOs together with a soft rock concert by the young and promising band 497.

The exhibition illustrated which resources are renewable and which are non-renewable; what the effects of non-renewable resources are and which renewable resources can be used in Malta, together with the social, economic and environmental benefits of using renewable resources for electricity generation.

The drawings were made by children who attended Kidstart summer school. The pupils were asked to show artistically how energy can be saved and how generating electricity from sun and wind energy is possible in Malta.

In their promotional stands, Nature Trust Youths and Falko distributed samples of their publications and encouraged new members to enrol. T-shirts and textile bags with the design of the YEE international campaign were also available.

The event was sponsored by MEPA and the Youth Support Programme and had the support of BayStreet Complex. The Youth and Environment Europe promotional material were financed with grants from the European Youth Foundation and the Council of Europe.