Local association Workshops Without Borders (Ateliere Fără Frontiere - AFF) is one of the five winners of the Sustainable Development Gala dedicated to Responsible Production and Consumption, organized by the Department for Sustainable Development within the Government of Romania at the beginning of January.

Competition finalists included organizations that have run successful projects based on sustainable production models or education/information solutions aimed at adopting responsible consumption behaviours. The judging criteria were the quality of the projects to be collaborative, their public benefits, creativity, replicability and visibility, and their ability to generate continuity. 

AFF is a social and environmental association with economic activity established in 2008 to help integrate vulnerable people into the labour market. To this end, it has created four social insertion enterprises - educlick, remesh, logiEtic and the bio&co farm, offering personalized services of socio-professional support, psychotherapy and pedagogical support to people with challenging backgrounds (long-term unemployment, addictions, disabilities, school dropout, domestic violence, or human trafficking). 

To date, 295 adults have been employed in the association’s labour market integration program within its four circular economy and ecological agriculture workshops. 

For over 15 years, AFF has been collecting and reusing electrical and electronic waste, equipping IT laboratories of schools in Romania with refurbished computers, making sustainable fashion products from advertising banners, and growing ecological vegetables. 

Its bio&co farm, spread over five hectares in the village of Ciocănari in Dâmbovița county, obtained ecological certification, including for the 80 varieties of cultivated vegetables. The farm’s weekly production is distributed to 100 customers in Bucharest and Ilfov county.

“Vegetables are grown in Ciocănari by vulnerable people from the village, who, before being part of this project, worked as day labourers only in the warm season without a work contract. The association created this farm to offer them a better living and to grow everything the way it was done in the old days - naturally,” said Andreea Despa, bio&co farm manager.

Currently, eight people from disadvantaged backgrounds are employed at the farm.

In 2021, AFF was selected as a winner of the 2021 EESC Civil Society Prize for its educlick project.

irina.marica@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Ateliere Fără Frontiere)