EnRoute (project name) / Empower The Youth (legally incorporated name)
Organization Details
EnRoute helps schools and individuals to reduce their carbon footprint through daily transport & shopping activities. Utilizing technology for good, we’ve built a mobile app & a web platform that assists young people to create daily commuting plans with the least amount of CO2 emissions. What is more, through EnRoute, they learn what’s behind their favorite fashion brand, and take action on the spot, swapping greenwashing corporations for local sustainable stores. Sharing campaigns on international summits and youth events, we educate humanity to break the stigma that living sustainably is a huge and expensive transformation. Instead, we inspire them to harness the power of small daily actions and reduce one CO2 gram at a time. We’re a proudly local organization, directly cooperating with our communities, but also proudly global, operating in over 50 countries.
Impact Story
When I was 17-years old, I’ve moved to Skopje, North Macedonia to attend a three-month Mathematics – Olympiad Training. Skopje, even though it’s inhabited by less than 500,000 citizens, has been listed by the World Health Organization (WHO) amongst the cities in Europe with the highest concentration of CO2 emissions in the air. Although my studies were going progressively, the first week of the camp was the worst in my life. The whole city was filled in with absolute negativity and toxicity. And how could you be positive and alive when you can’t breathe? The only optimistic component of my journey was the ability to stay together with my aunt. But, not for so long. Suffering from plenty of cardiovascular diseases, Skopje’s dense air pollution led her to experience complete blood vessel damage which resulted in her swift passing. That event caused a 360-degrees change in my perspective and put me on the front line. I gave up car rides, minimized my waste & dedicated myself to buying local and organic products - but if only cleaning up the air was such an easy task. Asking residents why they are not taking any action, knowing that their lives are in danger, each received answer was conveying the same message: “I would love to, but I don’t have enough time/money/power to make a change.” Inspired by how the greatest emergent pandemic relayed only on individual steps (wearing a mask, washing hands, etc), in April 2020, I started EnRoute to tackle climate change by the same principle, as one mask saves lives, our saved CO2 emissions can too.
And in 18 months we’ve managed to reach over 60.000 people across the Globe and have our software downloaded over 650 times. Through it, we’ve saved 170.000 kg CO2 emissions and helped our users discover 645 sustainable shops. Last but not least, we’ve created a tight-knit community of over 3000 members and 50 ambassadors, who are saving the Planet Earth, one CO2 gram at a time.
