ZOOM - Kids on the move to Milan

ZOOM - a campaign for children all over Europe about sustainable mobility and the environment

Young children from all over Europe get together to move in 2003. By zooming to school on foot, bikes or scooters, they discover their daily journeys through fun and movement. They will also experience how this helps to treat the world's climate with care. Visit www.zoom-europe.org to learn more.

ZOOM - a symbolic journey from Brussels via Kyoto to Milan

The ninth United Nations Climate Change Conference will take place in Milan, Italy in December 2003. Children make a symbolic journey to the conference to present their ideas. On their way there, they and their parents learn more about the relationship between their transport choices, quality of life and the environment. They will also get more informed about how the city of Kyoto in Japan is involved in climate protection. The project steers clear of dry facts, and instead emphasises the fun of movement and independent mobility.

ZOOM - gives children a voice

The Children's Mobility Report gives children the opportunity to express their mobility needs. After analysing problems encountered during their daily journeys, children come up with their own ideas and develop solutions independently. With the reports they can address their local decision-makers and call for concrete changes for the children's mobility situation.

How ZOOM guides children on their way:

All participating schools and kindergartens get a comprehensive toolkit to carry out a project week dedicated to sustainable mobility (visit www.zoom-europe.org). During this week, children and their parents are asked to leave the car at home and use other means of transport for journeys to school, kindergarten and work. These new journeys e.g. on bikes, scooters or by foot, become Everyday Discovery Journeys and encourage them to experience the environment in a new way. While discovering their daily journeys, children get to know more about the benefits of movement and mobility in a playful way. It is also a chance to draw children's attention to their public transport needs.

Kids on the move to the Climate Conference

Every time the children travel on foot or via other forms of sustainable transport during the project week they receive Green Footprints. They collect the footprints to represent their symbolic journey to Milan. ZOOM requires 28,029 Green Footprints to be able to travel from Brussels via Kyoto to Milan. So ZOOM needs the support of as many European children as possible!

At the beginning of December 2003 the European Commissioner for the Environment, Margot Wallström, will hand over all collected Green Footprints to the participants of the Ninth United Nations Conference on Climate Change. This is to show the politicians and decision-makers that children in Europe are keen to contribute to the Kyoto Protocol.

Hot Spots Expedition

The campaign's third element helps children to identify areas of concern, called Hot Spots, in their surroundings, and think of solutions for these problems. Independently, they work out new ideas, suggestions and solutions which increase children's safety. If these concerns are addressed, this may encourage more children, even outside the project, to move more independently.

The result of the research will be the Children's Mobility Report that can be handed over to local decision-makers in the hope that concrete improvements in local transport organisation, planning and design will be made, taking children's needs into consideration.

ZOOM Project Partners

	Climate Alliance | Klima-Bündnis | Alianza del Clima (Project Co-ordination) Claudia Schury, Tel: +49-69-71 71 39-14, c.schury@klimabuendnis.org
	European Schoolnet Alexa Joyce, Tel: +32-2-790 7554, alexa.joyce@eun.org
	Ecologistas en Acción Patricia Carrera, Tel: +34-915-31-27-39, internacional@ecologistasenaccion.org
	Verkehrsclub Deutschland Michaela Mohrhardt, Tel: +49-228-985 85 16, michaela.mohrhardt@vcd.org