EcoZani

The overarching objective of EcoZani is to propose an alternative way towards just work transition in Kozani, within the framework of de-lignitisation, by empowering the city’s productive social capital and preserving its socio-cultural identity against unemployment, outmigration and under-skilling especially among young people. The core innovative approach is that EcoZani employs a popular, officially recognised, local annual event, with very old and strong ties to the local communities, as a vehicle and testing bed to activate local ecosystems, while working towards an integrated legacy: the strategic goal is to unearth, harness and retain talent, while the tactics is to turn the event into the first Zero-waste/ Zero-emission/ Zero-exclusion (3Z) Carnival in Greece and Europe. The proposed solution tackles the abovementioned challenges in 3 T-Ecosystems: i) “Talent”, developing a local ‘Talent Booster’ reinforcing local youth entrepreneurship and accelerating existing enterprises/ professionals; ii) “Technology”, producing and applying new 3Z products to the re-branded Carnival, while establishing two legacy structures for circu-tech innovation, i.e. the UpCycle Creative Reuse Center and the Municipal Inclusive Circu-Tech Hub; iii) “Tolerance”, opening EcoZani’s vision to the city through participatory processes and upskilling/ reskilling training programmes and capacity building.