Waste to Art is a capacity-building project in the youth field designed to strengthen the institutional, methodological and operational capacity of youth organisations in Egypt and Lebanon. The project responds to a structural challenge identified in both countries: environmental issues such as waste, pollution and unsustainable practices are highly visible, and youth organisations often organise environmental awareness activities, yet these initiatives are frequently short-term, fragmented and dependent on individual facilitators rather than being embedded in a consistent educational methodology.
Instead of organising isolated recycling or environmental awareness workshops, Waste to Art develops a complete non-formal education system based on eco-art. Locally available recyclable materials are used as tools for creative production, environmental exploration and structured reflection. Young participants do not simply create objects from waste; the creative process becomes a way to examine environmental responsibility, local problems, collaboration and behavioural change. The approach is particularly accessible because it uses low-cost materials and does not depend on participants having high levels of formal education.
The project follows a systemic approach: it first strengthens the participating organisations, then develops and validates a common methodology, builds the competences of youth workers, implements the methodology with young people, and finally embeds the model into the organisations’ regular programmes. The methodology is built around five interconnected pillars: organisational capacity, competence-based non-formal learning, experiential eco-art education, structured inclusion and participation, and digital integration and open access to results.
The direct professional target group includes 30 youth workers, while the final beneficiaries are 300 young people aged 15–25 in Egypt and Lebanon, participating in 12 structured learning cycles. Inclusion is built directly into the methodology: at least 50% of participants in each country should be young people with fewer opportunities.
1. Strengthen the organisational capacity of youth organisations.
The first objective is to help the participating organisations move from isolated activities towards structured, quality-assured youth programmes. The project will assess their existing governance, programme design, monitoring systems and digital readiness, and use this analysis to develop operational capacity-development plans. The intention is to create stronger internal systems so that environmental youth work becomes part of organisational planning rather than depending on temporary projects or individual staff members. Four organisational development plans—one for each partner—are expected to be produced and integrated into project implementation.
2. Develop and validate a common Waste to Art eco-art methodology.
The second objective is to create a field-ready methodology that can be implemented consistently in Egypt and Lebanon. The framework will standardise how sessions are facilitated, how participants are included, how learning is monitored and how activities and outcomes are documented. Rather than allowing each facilitator to interpret the concept differently, the project will establish a common structure and validate it through peer review before implementation. This creates a replicable model that other organisations can eventually adopt.
3. Strengthen the competences of youth workers.
The project aims to train and validate 30 youth workers so that they can independently deliver the methodology safely, inclusively and consistently. Their development will include intensive training, practice-based facilitation, pre- and post-training competence assessment, structured feedback and mandatory mentoring before they begin working with young participants. The objective is not simply to provide a training certificate, but to verify that youth workers are genuinely ready to implement the methodology according to agreed standards.
4. Provide structured eco-art learning opportunities for young people, particularly those with fewer opportunities.
The fourth objective is to implement 12 structured four-session learning cycles involving 300 young people, with 150 participants in Egypt and 150 in Lebanon. The project expects at least 240 participants to complete the entire four-session process. At least 50% of participants in each country should be young people with fewer opportunities. These cycles combine environmental awareness, creative transformation of recyclable materials, collaboration and structured reflection, providing young people with a complete learning process rather than a one-off environmental event.
5. Institutionalise the methodology and enable its replication beyond the project.
The final objective is to ensure that Waste to Art continues after the funded project ends. Each partner organisation should formally adopt the methodology and integrate it into at least one recurring programme line. The project also aims to establish local cooperation agreements with host organisations, prepare a two-year institutionalisation roadmap and create a publicly accessible resource hub containing the materials required to replicate the methodology.
At organisational level, the project is expected to leave the four partner organisations with stronger governance, planning, monitoring and programme-management systems, together with a validated methodology that can be integrated into their ordinary youth work. Each organisation will have a capacity baseline, an operational development plan and formal mechanisms for integrating Waste to Art into recurring activities.
At professional level, 30 youth workers will gain measurable competences in facilitation, inclusion management and documentation of non-formal learning. These trained practitioners should subsequently function as internal reference persons who can continue implementing Waste to Art, support colleagues and maintain consistent quality after the project ends.
At youth level, 300 young people will participate in the structured eco-art cycles, with a minimum target of 240 full completions. Participants are expected to strengthen their environmental awareness in relation to local realities, experience collaborative problem-solving and reflect more systematically on their own behaviours and environmental choices. The emphasis is on completing a coherent four-session learning journey rather than attending an isolated workshop.
The project will also generate concrete institutional outputs: four formal adoption decisions, at least six cooperation agreements with local host entities, a two-year institutionalisation roadmap and a publicly accessible replication resource hub, including Arabic executive summaries. These outputs are designed to make the methodology usable beyond the immediate partnership.
In the longer term, Waste to Art aims to contribute to the professionalisation and stabilisation of environmental youth work in the Southern Mediterranean. By replacing fragmented, event-based activities with a structured and repeatable competence-based model, the project intends to give youth organisations a sustainable way to provide environmental education and create opportunities for the approach to be adapted by organisations in other countries.
