Good vibes, nice people, new friendships, a lot of laughter and a lot of good (Italian) food and drinks. That pretty much sums up the amazing week that the participants of the Green Youth exchange programme had in Palermo, Sicily. And of course that was not all, because they participated in a lot of fun activities, like beach cleaning, organizing a protest, team building games, visiting eco friendly shops and country presentations.
There were four organizations that participated in this project: Urban Foxes from Belgium, Brigada do Mar from Portugal, Unesco Initiative Center from Poland and Associazione Uniamoci Onlus from Sicily, which also was the organization that hosted this project.
The first day of the project was on Monday, the 7th of February. This day started with an introduction round and knowledge games. For the introducing part, the participants had to sit in a circle and had to pass around a talking stick. This stick is a part of the Dragon Dreaming method and is used in the aboriginal culture. The participant with the talking stick was allowed to speak, the others had to be quiet and listen to them. After the first participant introduced themselves, they passed the stick to the next one, then they introduced themselves, and so further. This talking stick was used every day, to finish the day off by passing it around and sharing their opinion and feelings about the day.
After the participants got to know each other a little bit, they did some group building activities, such as building the highest tower from paper articles.
Every day one of the participating organizations had to propose a green activity. On Monday it was the turn of Uniamoci Onlus. Their activity was about how to involve youth in active citizenship. For this
they made use of a problem tree, in which they wrote the causes, the main problem and the consequences of those problems. Everyone was allowed to share their ideas, what they think the problems are and what the solutions could be.
The participants had to evaluate every day, so also Monday, which was the last activity. After the evaluations everyone went back to the Hotel/home and met later at the restaurant where they had dinner that evening.
On Tuesday, the participants started the day by a two hour beach cleaning, proposed by Brigada do Mar. This took place at the coast, not far from the headquarter of Uniamoci Onlus.
Everyone had to choose a pair, and with the two of them they had to fill one big garbage bag. Because of the loads of trash at the beach, all the garbage bags were filled pretty fast, which means that the participants filled about 30 bags with trash.
After the participants filled all the bags, they went back to the headquarter, had a short break and continued with the activities. The first activity was the country presentation of the group from Portugal. They did this in the form of a quiz, such as all the other groups. After the quiz, they let everyone taste some sweets and wine that they brought with them from Portugal, with some Portuguese music in the background.
The activity that followed after, was a workshop for the creation of dig
ital contents for awareness, such as videos, GIFs and social images. The room was divided into these three stations, and every participant could choose what they wanted to make. In this way, three groups got formed and a GIF, video and image were created.
The activity that followed after, and also the last activity, was the country presentation of the group from Poland. They did this with a Kahoot, and after the quiz, they let everyone taste some food and vodka that they brought with them from Poland.
The day was, again, finished with evaluations and a dinner at another restaurant.
On the morning of Wednesday, the participants started their day with activities at the hotel. They were divided into five groups, and had to rotate until they had been to every station that was set up in the room. Each station had a different exercise they had to do. In the end, each group had to have a poem, a poster, postcards, a quiz and a motivation letter for a social activity.
After this activity, the groups participated in a green activity, proposed by Unesco Initiative Center, from Poland. Their activity was about how to plan a green action. First they held a presentation which contained all the information you need if you want to plan an action, such as a protest.
After the presentation the participants went out for lunch, and after lunch they continued with the activity of the polish group, outside. Everyone got divided in their national group, and every group had to make a poster they would use in a protest against environmental problems.
After finishing the posters, the groups participated in a green activity, proposed by Urban Foxes, from Belgium. For their activity, everyone had to imagine that they were another person with an age and personality of choice. They got divided into groups, and every group had to discuss what they would do, if they would have a free space next to the building they live in. With their group, they had to try to come up with a compromise of what to use the free space for. Some decided to make a parking lot, others wanted a park or an art gallery, or they wanted it all together. After this, everyone got to be themselves again and they continued the discussion by sharing their opinions about the possibilities of which a small place can be used, and can be beneficial for everyone.
After this activity, the evaluations took part, followed by the country presentation of Italy, by Uniamoci Onlus. All the other groups had to choose someone who got to be blindfolded and got to taste and smell some Italian herbs and food. After that everyone got to taste some Italian food and wine.
The day ended again with dinner in yet another restaurant.
In the early morning of Thursday, the groups participated in a Green City action in front of one of the highschools of Palermo. Together with the highschoolers, the participants had to clean the street, weed and plant flowers.
After their contribution to nature, half of the group went to get piercings, while the other half already went to the restaurant where they were about to have lunch, and waited for the others there. After lunch everyone had a little free time, which was followed by a presentation by the founder of Casa Allora, about the delicious liquor they created, named dalloro.
After everyone got to taste the liquor (multiple times), the groups continued their way to visit Laboriuso, an eco-friendly shop that creates their items from recycling trash. They make bags, jewelry, plates and much more.
After visiting this shop and two other eco-friendly shops around it, the evaluations and dinner followed to end the day.
On Friday, the groups from Portugal, Poland and Belgium had a free day, on which they visited the Ballarò market and went to Cefalù. At the end of the day they had dinner together with the participants of Uniamoci Onlus.
Saturday, the last day of the project. On this day, the participants used the Dragon Dreaming method to plan another project. For this they set up a goal, for which they had to come up
with ways to reach this goal, afterwards. After this they continued with inventing tasks, of which they had to decide if it belonged to the dreaming, planning, doing or celebrating part of a project. The participants came up with a lot of ideas and tasks and what they would need for a project. After this, it was the turn of the group from Belgium to present their country. They did this in the form of a quiz as well and also let everyone taste some sweets that they brought with them from Belgium. After the presentation, the activities of the last day were over and the groups finished their last day in Palermo with, of course, a dinner.
So after finishing an intensive week, the participants of the Green Youth project can look back on a week full of fun and educational activities, a lot of laughter, the making of new friendships and learning things that can be useful in the future.
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