Green Life with GreenMap of Tbilisi

Hi everyone!

I am Salome, an Erasmus exchange student from Business and Technology University, Tbilisi, Georgia. And I am doing my Winter Semester 2021-2022 at RheinAhrCampus. I want to share a story about the unique opportunity I got even before my exchange semester started in Remagen. This is a story how I worked with students from all over the world in the team of GreenErasmus-RheinAhrCampus and how together, we created the GreenMap of Tbilisi. 

During the Summer Semester 2021, as part of the International Business Simulation Course, students at RheinAhrCampus formed the GreenErasmus-RheinAhrCampus Company, which brought together students from more than ten different countries! In one team, they worked on development of sustainable practices for a healthier and greener student life globally. 

The idea of GreenErasmus-RheinAhrCampus was to guide students to a greener lifestyle with the help of the GreenMap that shows all sustainable places in the neighborhood. They created the GreenMap of Remagen (Germany), Campina Grande (Brazil), and Baku (Azerbaijan). Luckily, the Georgian partner university were also invited to take part in this green mission and this is how I got into this amazing project! 

Together with my friend Ani, who is also now spending her Erasmus exchange this Winter semester at RheinAhrCampus, we started to explore the green side of Tbilisi and record everything on the GreenMap.  To be honest, this task was much more complicated than we thought. Tbilisi is a huge city and, turns out, not as green as we expected. Even Google could not help us to find, for example, "10 greenest places in Tbilisi" or "10 eco-friendly places in Tbilisi". That very moment, I understood that something like a GreenMap could change it and help everyone to live a greener lifestyle in Tbilisi. 

Our international team of me and Ani, Elene and Giorgi, Georgian students at RheinAhrCampus, and Jan, a German student, gathered to work on the GreenMap of Tbilisi. The group was very collaborative and enthusiastic about the GreenErasmus project. We all were looking for green places in Tbilisi and then on Sundays, all day Ani and I were taking photos of them. Jan and Georgi were writing descriptions for these places in English. Elene was our supervisor and checked our work regularly. Finally, we mapped the 22 places and shared information about them. 

It felt incredible to work on something so much impactful and to have fun in the international environment at the same time! We did a great job and are excited to share the GreenMap of Tbilisi with you: https://new.opengreenmap.org/browse/maps/609bf8d001896201001270e0/map-view?locale=en-us 

It was very impressive to discover new places while creating the GreenMap. Ani and I walked almost around the whole city of Tbilisi! I even set a record for my walking 23 096 steps in one day! I also tried my first ropeway across the turtle Lake. Though I was super scared, I took a risk and got on the rope for the first time in my life. I can truly say that I became more open-minded, rational, and greener myself while helping others to be more sustainable. 

I was eager to use the GreenMap of Remagen when I arrived to Germany and curious about the garbage sorting here and riding a bicycle on a regular basis. However, I am ready to learn new green practices and sure that with the help of the GreenMap is going to be so much easier and fun!

Salome Kitesashvili from Business and Technology University, Georgia.