Circular momentum in action: MIR Foundation team joins the 3rd CAROUSEL Project Meeting in Ptuj, Slovenia

Change begins with community—and that spirit was at the heart of the 3rd CAROUSEL project meeting, held from 21–22 October 2025 in Ptuj, Slovenia. The event brought together partners from six Adriatic-Ionian countries, uniting their creativity and commitment to advancing circular lifestyles across the region.

Hosted by ZRS Bistra Ptuj, the two-day meeting was a vibrant exchange of ideas, experiences, and local success stories. Our team Gabriela Kostovska Bogoeska, Executive director and Emilija Andonova, Programme coordinator from the Foundation for Management and industrial research, who actively contributed to discussions on community building, communication strategies, and sustainability planning within the CAROUSEL initiative.

At its core, the CAROUSEL (Creating A maRketplace fOr Up-cycled productS sEcond Life) project seeks to transform linear consumption into a circular way of living—connecting citizens, designers, businesses, and local authorities to give products and materials a meaningful second life.

During the Ptuj meeting, partners reviewed the progress of the project’s main components: the Online Marketplace, Mentorship Programme, Upcycling Hubs, and awareness-raising campaigns. The MIR Foundation team played a proactive role in shaping the next steps of these activities, especially in designing inclusive approaches to community engagement and communication across partner regions.

One of the highlights of the event was the study visit to the Repair Café at Center Ponovne Uporabe in Slovenske Konjice, where partners witnessed practical examples of reuse and repair culture.

The meeting also included productive sessions on piloting pop-up upcycling shops, planning local awareness events, and strengthening collaboration among regional stakeholders.

Communication plays a central role in CAROUSEL’s success story, and the MIR Foundation has been instrumental in supporting its strategic outreach efforts. From engaging social media storytelling to designing inclusive campaigns, the project continues to reach thousands across the region with inspiring messages about sustainability, creativity, and second chances for materials and ideas alike.

As the project moves forward, the MIR team will contribute to the preparation of upcoming national events, pop-up fairs, and workshops that will invite citizens, students, artisans, and local businesses to actively participate in the circular transition.

The months ahead will see the finalization of the CAROUSEL Online Marketplace, the completion of local community hubs, and the launch of the Festival of Circularity—a celebration of creative reuse and shared environmental responsibility.

The MIR Foundation, together with its partners across the region, remains dedicated to fostering innovation, creativity, and sustainability through practical, people-centered initiatives. With teamwork, mentorship, and shared vision, the CAROUSEL project continues to turn circular dreams into tangible impact.

CAROUSEL project creates a “Marketplace of up-cycled products” by piloting approaches and solutions that increase the level of circular lifestyles in small villages and lead to behavioral changes in citizens, enterprises, and local public authorities. This is the proposed response to a common challenge of the Adrion area where towns and villages are resource-intensive consumption centers that need a transition to circularity as a green solution. By now for Local Authorities, circularity is still a weakly applied concept and circular models only remain a niche of possible solutions. Challenges on this scale need to be addressed transnationally and beyond the borders. The project works in 6 Countries by involving and addressing small villages (like small islands and small internal rural municipalities) aiming to reach the whole ADRION area (and beyond) when the Marketplace is launched and fully operational. CAROUSEL promotes and tests an advanced up-cycling process by creating local circular ecosystems. Strong cooperation and jointly developed strategies bring these solutions to the Adrion region. The novelty stays in the creation of a community involving all the relevant actors of the “circle”, acting on the CAROUSEL MarketPlace as providers of the resource (Local authorities), transformers (creative designers and innovative manufacturers, SME), influencers and facilitators (intermediates), buyers/consumers (either private or public).