The Awareness Programme is the MEDISS interactive and problem-oriented programme designed to increase awareness on non-conventional water, best agricultural practices, and sustainable development goals.
In particular, the Awareness Programme objectives are threefold: 

• getting support and active engagement from identified target groups and beneficiaries on water management and project activities by raising their awareness on the theme (sustainable, non-conventional water supply);
• promoting exchange, development and uptake of good practices on non-conventional water supply at cross-border level; 
• enabling efficient application of MEDISS innovative solutions for local institutions and local communities.

The programme is addressed to farmers, local communities and authorities, practitioners, and relevant stakeholders from the four MEDISS pilot area: Italy, Palestine, Jordan and Tunisia.

In Italy, the Awareness Programme operates in the agricultural district of Arborea (Sardinia). In this area, the role of the MEDISS project results within the initiatives underway to strengthen environmental sustainability and the competitiveness of the production chain in the agricultural district was the focus of a wide-ranging listening and discussion phase with the institutional and entrepreneurial players in the area. 

As a part of the Programme, and using the methods permitted by the current pandemic phase, over the course of nine months of work, CRENoS experts have conducted 24 semi-structured interviews with representatives of institutions and associations (municipalities, regional agencies operating in the environmental, water and agricultural spheres); entrepreneurs (hotels, campsites, restaurants, major companies linked to livestock farming, fishing, traditional and innovative agriculture) and nine farmers, members of the local cooperative system who manage medium-large or large farms (from a minimum of 135 up to 520 cows).  

In addition to the interviews, the Awareness Program includes two workshops with local stakeholders (the same stakeholders interviewed). Workshops take place when plants and research activities are in advanced stage, to allow practical demonstration and experimental demo plots. These events are aimed at developing local insititutions’ competences to deliver quality water services and integrate innovative and sustainable solutions in their governance frameworks. 

The first workshop, unfortunately still online due to the recrudescence of Covid19, was an opportunity for the Italian MEDISS partners, CRENoS and ENAS, to share respectively, the comparative analysis of the results obtained with the interviews, in this first Awareness Programme phase, and to illustrate the state of the art of the activity in progress with the ammonia stripping plant. In the area of Arborea, thanks to the pilot plant, MEDISS aims to re-use sludge from livestock facilities for the production of "clean" fertilisers, using advanced stripping technology.  

In this video, Dr Filippo Petrucci, CRENoS Assistant Facilitator, presents the outcomes of the comparative analysis carried out: https://youtu.be/JF4W7JUxoOU