Table of content Editorial: New values for a better future under construction in Thasos Island
Workshops: Different workshops, different ways of learning
Trip: Learning about public spaces around Thasos
Tool: Creating the pedagogical tool
Partners
New values for a better future under construction in Thasos Island Authors: Martina Linzer, Martina Socha, Vanessa Coppola and Iro Patseli
Edi tori
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Around thirty young Europeans from Greece, Spain, Czech Republic, Italy, Romania, France, Bulgaria, Latvia, Poland, Turkey and Austria came together for a great reason: To find innovative solutions on how to use abandoned public spaces by creating their own entrepreneurial ideas with the youth of their countries! The training course financed in the framework of the Erasmus plusProgramme is hosted and organized by the non-formal group “Forward it” coming from Thasos. The project kicked-off on 7th of May 2015 and during 9 days the international participants will realize targeted activities to reach their common objectives for a better future! The involvement of the local community and the exchange of ideas and know-how with them is essential for the programme. The inhabitants of Thasos should be delighted to see so much energy and new spirit from the side of the young generation. The international participants aged between 18 and 32 years were asked to represent their countries and culinary customs during the first day. They were dealing with topics such as social initiatives and best practice examples on how to further develop the “abandoned spaces and areas” in their surrounding focusing on entrepreneurial solutions. During the intercultural night they talked and experienced different traditions, music and typical food in the Cultural Center of Thasos. The young Europeans got more aware on European Union´s diversity, and also got sensitized for the biggest problems and challenges in each country. Through developing common sustainable business ideas and new projects we as active citizens can give solutions to these challenges. Deeper understanding of intercultural relations and the disappearance of stereotypes about other countries are the positive side effects of such encounters. Overall, the objective of the project is to promote the youths’ active entrepreneurial spirit in general and creativity. By creating social business ideas the participants enlarge their know-how on green economy, fundraising and project management. Throughout the training course, the participants take part in different workshops and activities such as sharing their experiences, discussing problems, meeting with local entrepreneurs and guides and visiting the area for getting inspired for new perspectives. By the end of the project an official awarding ceremony for the YouthPass will be organized together with local community in order to present the best entrepreneurial ideas and the thematic educational tool. The participants highlight the importance of this encounter and the manifold opportunities they find for networking and the creation of new projects in their countries. For everybody it is a great opportunity to encourage innovation and creativity, intellectual and artistic freedom, social business ideas and cultural exchange. In the near future the participants will spread their know-how in their local communities, share what they learned and raise positive awareness about intercultural business and sustainable thinking in the non-formal educational sector, because “In the middle of every difficulty lies an opportunity. Where there is a challenge, there can be created an entrepreneurial solution. Do what you love and love what you do, and it will become a success!”
Workshops
Different workshops, different ways of learning
Author: Sabrina Schifrer On the second day of the training course we did the presentations of solutions for abandoned spaces in Austria, Greece, Latvia, France and Bulgaria. We learned a lot about different solutions. For example a mountain that was converted into a motocross festival, or initiatives about civic involvement (Carton Plain) in the city. A guest was also attending the training course for explaining us his social business at the mainland of Greece. He works with Xeolith, and a grain that almost was extinguished in order to make money for his other projects in the sector of art and ecohouses. He explained us his new business ideas and was eager to communicate with the people from the different countries. In the afternoon we were having group discussions about how municipalities are managing their public spaces. We found out that there are different procedures in the countries that are more or less functioning. In order to change them a movement can be created to express a need and that the municipality will follow that movement and fullfill their needs. Beneath that we saw that youngsters are an important part of society and take over the role of changemakers – the part that is so important for society and creates the future. The last part of the day was the reflecction and the evaluation. In teams of two people from different countries we were finding out our accomplished learning objectives so far.
Author: Alexandra Murcia The third of the Training Course was dedicated to understand how can young people take an active role in their public areas of their communities. So the group started the working day with a building-group energizer which consisted in a “hidden hands race” which was very funny and accomplished its aim perfectly. After the preparation, Attila explained the group the tasks for the morning. At this time people should identify some concrete abandoned public space in their local community and think about an idea of which new use could be given to the area. For this activity the participants were divided in five groups and went outside a sunny Sunday morning to debate, think, work and putting their findings together. After this process, each group explained to the others their conclusions. As it is important to learn but also to do, after the theoretical work came the practical one. The same groups were given an example type of an abandoned public space (as an abandoned building, an open-air area, a wall, etc) and had to think together about an specific new use for it,and the process to make it real, from the very beggining (the idea), passing to the process to make it real (different fases to achieve the aim) until the end (the idea made real). To show all this complex process, the groups had to explain all this work in a role play where everyone took a role on the process and, like in a theatre play, scened it. This role play helped to make understand the rest of the group graphically their own ideas but also to be more conscious about the work made. After lunch, as it was Mothers's Day in Thassos and there were some celebrations, singings, etc inside our work place, the “office” was moved to the streets in the island. Each of the existing five groups were given a concrete area of Limenas in order to explore it and identify abandoned public spaces and, at the same time, discuss with the locals which possible uses could be given to those places. Every group was given a map with the specific area to research and got into know it. It was an interesting activity to discover new spaces in the area, to interact with locals and also to watch with different eyes an abandoned space, more like an opportunity to make something good from it more than an ugly or unuseful place. After this interesting workhop, each group exposed its conclussions to the others in an amphitheatre at the port and it was the final scene of a fruitful journey. Curtain falls.
Author: Silvia L贸pez On the second and fifth day, we had the honour of being joint by two professionals in the field of social entrepreneurship. Adonis Koutsoumbas is an artist based in Xanthi region where he participates in different social business. He is producer of natural and ecological cob, but also he builds ecohouses in the area. On the other hand, Panagiotis Raftopoulos is a doctor and manager of a nursery business in Thasos. Mr Raftopoulos is a politician and part of the municipal council, as well, and is in charge of public companies. Both guests shared their experience with us and it was very useful to learn how social entrepreneurship works generally in Greece and concretely in Thasos. Their speeches were a good opportunity to know different local and international options to finance these types of businesses in Europe but also to be aware of the difficulties that social entrepreneurship must face to grow and succeed.
Panagiotis Raftopoulos
Adonis Koutsoumbas
Trip
Learning about public spaces around Thasos
Authors: Dominique Altschuck, AmĂŠlie Perocheau and Egija Ä’delmane It's nine fifteen, after having swallowed quickly our breakfast, we jump in the bus which is waiting for us : it's time to leave for our excursion day. First stop in the school of Limenas, where we could see a realisation done by some pupils on the school and grafic artists. We continue our trip by going to Panagia. The sky is cloudy and rains starts to fall, but we are happy to discover other places of the island. We strated our walk by acceding to an "abandoned" playground, situated near a small religious place, which is in contrast still used by people. We noticed since we arrived in Greece, that most of the public spaces abandoned that are shown to us are playgrounds : we wonder if it is a real problematic of the island, and what is the reason why people don't take care of these areas ? Maybe the way of playing changed these last years and games proposed are not adapted anymore to the needs of the children? The village is really nice, there are trees everywhere and plants crowding in all the spaces. We are impressed by the care and the beauty given to the front of the houses. There is no one house without flowers or decoration ! We question ourselves about the reason... Once, someone told us that their is a law in touristic villages in the south of France, were people have to take care of their houses and put plants in order to create a welcoming atmospher for the visitors. Is it the same here? Do people have the obligation of taking "care" or is it cultural to share the spaces with nature? Anyway, it's beautiful...
...CONTINUE...
We continue our walk and we follow the small river : it's really complicated to pass by, the streets are really tight at some points. It questions us about accessibility of public spaces. In France, since 2013, there are a lot of rules that forces authorities to think the accessibility of public spaces for everyone: people with disability for example. In this sense, It would be impossible for a person using a wheel chair to pass this area. On the other hand, changing this street to improve the accessibility would completely change the aspect and the authentic atmospher of this cute passage. What is the priority: The accessibility or conserving the patrimony? This is all the challenge of public authorities and urban planners to think intelligently both problematics. Further on, we fell on lamps that were covered by plastic bags... why? We try to ask some questions to find out the reason : we are told that the plastic bags are temporary installed to protect the lamps when it's raining. It's interesting to notice that a private initiative is made to preserve the quality of the publish equipment... Or are they private lamps ? We end the visit of the village by passing by the olive oil factory, where a woman welcomes us and explains us the history of the building, and the process of creation of olive oil. The last part of the day takes part in the school of Prinos. Our challenge is to think about the structure of four different public spaces surrounding the school. Children and people from mother's association of the school joined us to give us information about the context. They are also here to think with us, and find new ideas. We divided ourselves in groups to build makets and to prototype some of the ideas: more flowers and trees, gardens, other games, more colors, benches, tables, etc. The ideas are not missing...But the question of the realisation is present : the school doesn't have a lot of money to invest, and some propositions will be difficult to realise. Another group created a collaborative methodology that would be interesting to experiment in order to implicate not only children and professors of the school but also the surrounding of the school: parents, passers-by, friends, storekeepers... The idea would be to create events in order for everyone to meet and to think collaboratively this problematic. As the name says ("pubic space") is public, which means that everyone can use it and everyone should have ideas to improve these spaces. The diversity of points of view will be the richness of the process, and the force of this future public space! After this interesting day we all jumped in the bus to go back to Thasos... We can hear snoring in the bus.. this day was intensive.
Creating the pedagogical tool
Last three days of training, we had a very important task. We had to create and design a pedagogical tool which will support youth and youth workers in the difficult proccess of becoming a social entrepreneur who deal with public spaces. We decided that our tool will be a website that will include definitions, examples of good practices, interesting links and other important information. We worked in groups to create all the content and it was great experience to be able to work as a team and finalize a first version of the tool.
Authors: María Márquez and Elena Prieto Last morning was the first time we reviewed the list of the task that should be done during the previous days in order to finish the content of the website. All together we got to the conclusion that we should put another option in the webpage called “download and links” and we saw the provisional final result how it is going to be the website. We were doing one dynamic to know if we like the tool (and why like it) and if we would have chosen another one. In the second part of the morning we were doing one quite interesting activity called “Open Space”. We were 10 countries with 30 people participating in this training so the ideas was that each one had to put one idea about their future project in one post-it and then we explained what the idea consists in. The key of this method is to create partnership for future project. So we divided in 3 groups and we had 20 minutes in each round to talk about the ideas with who had it. Some of the ideas were: 1. Co working spaces cooperation’s. 2. Thematic walks 3. Training course “how to develop skills with theater”. 4. Training course about “Human Right” 5. Training Course how to develop public spaces in village. After we were talking about each idea and about this “future project” with who and where is going to take place. The last part of the morning was about the competences and skills that we were learning and writing in computer in order to get the diploma of the course. After that as a conclusion of the course we were talking in a circle about the things that we were learning, how we felt, which the feeling is and which things about the program should be improved.
Partn ers
Informal group "Forward it" Verein zur Förderung von Kulturaustausch und Nachhaltigkeit in Europa Euroteam Asociación Diagonal España Work in Progress Asociatia de Tineri Din Ardeal Solidarity Tracks Association Migration Solidarite et echange pour le developpement Institute for Creative Civil Strategies Sistema un G Latvija Grupo de Desarrollo Rural Valle del Guadalhorce Comité de Liaison Diagonal-France Teknik Egitim Grubu Gazi Universitesi
This publication only reflects the views of the authors, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. Edited by Silvia L贸pez Talens