Environment and sustainable development in Europe: a challenge for Youth
10 March, 2009 - 22:58 — martin
Dates: 8-17 April 2009
The project will take place in Gela a town on the southern coast of Sicily, in a small natural reserve the “Biviere di Gela”.
After many years of industrial development and implantation of very high impact industries and agriculture, at the beginning of the '80 a new approach to environment protection has started in the area.
The protected area include a small lake, a wet zone and some fields. The natural reserve is managed by the environmental organization "LIPU" (birds protection league) that organize scientific researches, clean up the island and organize small tours for groups of students.
The project involves youngsters coming from Italy, Ukraina, France, Russian Federation and Bulgaria, for 9 days and is aimed to their social inclusion and reintegration through environmental education. According to the weather conditions (Easter time is quite impredictable...), the volunteers will be asked to clean up the area, to build fences, help in build wooden observation station for bird-watching, plant new trees, other manual works.
Following the indication from previous camps and exchanges run in the area, the work will be more focused on environmental aspects of the management of the natural reserve.
Leisure time will be organized by the leaders. One staff person of the natural reserve will run a workshop on making toys with bamboo and wood.
Please note that the groups from the involved countries may have some disadvantaged participants (in the case of the Italian group we already know that at least two persons will have phisical handicap and one or two young offenders who are now benefiting of the services provided by Office for Social services of the Ministry of Justice) and therefore all the participants bust be prepared to share their time and daily life with openmind and good spirit toward inclusion of all.
The participants must be aged between 16 and 25.
Accomodation will be in two deferent houses, in one of them there is one bathroom, two bedrooms and the kitchen, in the other one there are two bedrooms and one shower and more toilets. Participants will cook by themselves. Sleeping bag is needed.
Financial condition:
Administrative fee.
The participants will get 70% of the travel cost plus 100% of the visa cost.
[mmartinov.com] Martin Martinov
Questions from Nathalie for the APV
My main questions:
What about the activities planned? at least one workshop, what else?
The main activity will be physical work in the reserve but as it is a youth exchange (and not a workcamp), what else is planned? Discussions, other workshops… relatives to the topic: “environment and sustainable development in Europe, a challenge for youth”!
What is expected from the Bulgarian group? What should we prepare? (excepted presentation of the country, of the organization…)
Something relative to the topic?
Maybe to know also if for example for the presentation of the country there are some “restrictions” or if we are totally free to present it…
And in the case you were already travelling during the meeting (hey, I’m joking!) , Snezhi suggested to ask:
Age of participants in other groups
What kind of “disadvantaged” people?
Leisure time (I understood it’s part of the work of the leaders)
APV in Sicily
As you all know, last week I was in Italy for a few days to attend the advanced planning meeting for the exchange in Gela. The Italians were very nice and it looks like it'll be a great exchange! :-)
I've arrived late Thursday evening, and also in the same plane was the Russian leader, Olga. She doesn't speak English very much, but knows Italian. Anybody of you speaking Italian? Anyway.. at the Palermo airport a guy from SCI Italy was waiting for us and he took us to the office with a microbus, and we joined the others.
On the whole next day we've discussed the program, which IMHO is very nice. I'll present it to you when we meet in the beginning of April. Some very exciting news is that we'll be visiting Etna for one day during the exchange. And another day we'll have a "free day" in Palermo. So maybe take a look at wikipedia and other sites and make a list of what you want to visit there, we won't have time for everything but I'm sure we'll see enough to get the feeling of the city.
We've got up really early Saturday morning and went to Gela with the same microbus. It's a bus with 8+1 seats, the Italians told us that they're going to rent two more for the exchange and maybe I'll be driving one of them. The reserve is 6 km. away from the city, it's really nice and calm place. We've met "the worker", his wife and kid, and "the director" there. They told us a little bit about the reserve, and showed us where we'll be sleeping and cooking and what kind of work we'll have to do. I think it's easy and interesting but that's only my view :-) So there are three things we'll be doing:
That's it. There is a backup plan with some more things if we complete everything before the end of the exchange, but it's not necessary.
About the accommodation - we'll be sleeping in two houses (use the link at the bottom to see some pictures), the beds I saw were nice but we'll have to bring sleeping bags and if you want - sheets. The toilets and bathrooms are nice, although we have to spend the water wisely and not waste it. This will be discussed the first day when we arrive. This day we'll also divide us in groups for cooking, cleaning and so on, each day a different group will cook, but the groups will be international :-) Some bad news - April is the month of mosquitoes there, so make sure you're prepared! Take some sunscreen too, it could have a lot of sun then. Nice shoes for walking and work (they used mine as an example :-D) are needed too. Don't forget that we're be making a trek to Etna, you have to wear something comfortable for your feet.
We'll have to prepare a research concerning the protected areas in our country to discuss with the other groups during the exchange.
Also each group has to bring some games, traditional food and thinking to the inter cultural evening. We can present Bulgaria, CVS and Vlahi (there is interest for this). We'll have around 0:30 - 1 hour for this. So no quizzes and other boring stuff! :-)
Regarding the financial part, each of us will have to bring the 30% of the price of our tickets and give them to SCI Italy when we're there.
All my photos from Italy are here: http://mmartinov.com/gallery/2009-03-12-15-Italy