Learning through experience: building environmental awareness through water education

On 29 April 2026, the FELICITY II pro­gramme organ­ised an edu­ca­tion­al vis­it to the waste­water treat­ment facil­i­ties of Lvivvodokanal for stu­dents of the edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tion Mri­iDii. The ini­tia­tive aimed to strength­en envi­ron­men­tal aware­ness by pro­vid­ing first-hand insight into the process­es that under­pin urban water and waste­water ser­vices.

See­ing how waste­water treat­ment works in prac­tice offers a per­spec­tive that goes beyond class­room learn­ing. Dur­ing the vis­it, stu­dents explored how waste­water is col­lect­ed, treat­ed, and safe­ly returned to the envi­ron­ment, gain­ing a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the con­nec­tions between water use, envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, and sus­tain­able resource man­age­ment.

Par­tic­i­pants also learned about the his­to­ry of Lviv water and waste­water util­i­ty “Lvivvodokanal”, which has sup­plied water to the city for 125 years from sources locat­ed 30–100 kilo­me­tres away. Dis­cus­sions high­light­ed the grow­ing chal­lenges asso­ci­at­ed with cli­mate change and the increas­ing pres­sure on fresh­wa­ter resources, under­lin­ing the impor­tance of their effi­cient and respon­si­ble use.

The stu­dents observed the key stages of waste­water treat­ment, from mechan­i­cal removal of waste and sand to sed­i­men­ta­tion and bio­log­i­cal treat­ment process­es. They also dis­cussed how every­day deci­sions, includ­ing prop­er use of sew­er sys­tems, can help reduce envi­ron­men­tal impacts and pro­tect water resources.

Through sup­port­ing envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion, FELICITY II con­tributes to rais­ing aware­ness of sus­tain­able water use and respon­si­ble resource man­age­ment among younger gen­er­a­tions.

FELICITY II is an inter­na­tion­al ini­tia­tive sup­port­ing sus­tain­able urban infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment in East­ern Euro­pean and Cen­tral Asia coun­tries, aim­ing to reduce green­house gas emis­sions. The pro­gramme pro­vides tech­ni­cal and ana­lyt­i­cal assis­tance to munic­i­pal­i­ties to help them design and imple­ment cli­mate-friend­ly invest­ments in water sup­ply, waste­water man­age­ment, and ener­gy-effi­cient build­ings. 

FELICITY II is imple­ment­ed by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH in coop­er­a­tion with the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank and with the sup­port of the Ger­man Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment, under the frame­work of the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI).