At the end of November, our Year 12 German A Level students received some news that has made them (and the rest of the OHS community) very happy: they have been chosen as one of the final winning groups of Oekoropa, a Europe-wide competition run by the Goethe-Institut.
To enter the competition, the group was required to develop a detailed plan for a climate-neutral tour through Europe, starting from Oxford and visiting the trio capitals of the EU Council Presidency. The second requirement was to create a strategy for communicating the proposed journey with as wide an audience as possible, with the aim of encouraging thought, reflection and discussion around sustainable travel. And if that doesn’t sound challenging enough, both components needed to be written and submitted entirely in German.
As one of the 10 winning groups, the participating students (Eleanor, Amy, Lili and Lizzie) will actually embark on the trip they spent so long planning, bringing their proposed journey to life. Each girl has also won her very own folding bike: a suitable prize for a competition all about sustainability, we think!
Incredibly, this isn’t the first success to come from the group’s entry into Oekoropa. Earlier in the year, as you may remember, we announced that the group had won one of the competition’s ‘fast developer prizes’. Awarded to the first five groups to submit entries meeting all of the requirements by July 31st, the prize awarded the girls €5,000 to spend on sustainability here at OHS.
From Eleanor, the student whose idea it was to enter the competition:
We are absolutely thrilled to have won prizes in both rounds of the Oekoropa competition. To us sustainability and European togetherness are fundamental issues. The Goethe-Institut and the German Foreign Office have offered us a fantastic opportunity to realise our common goals.
Congratulations Team TreecoTravel. You have done phenomenally well, and we can’t wait to hear all about your trip through Europe!