Category: 12 Unna/Latina/Krzyżowa

[by Jana Wurlitzer]

We are sitting in the courtyard of Casetta Rossa, a beautiful cafe in Rome-Garbatella. Someone is looking on their mobile: “Oh, there is a storm warning for Unna”. “They are so lucky. We can only dream of that!”, someone else answers. Loud laughter at the table. Finally we are in Rome, for days we are looking forward to this excursion. Casetta Rossa is also a kind of youth centre, people come here to eat, relax, and participate in activities. After we were invited for lunch (pasta, tomatoes and mozarella cheese), we also good some food to go. Then we visitied the city in groups, and saw everything there is to see: The Colosseum, the Vatican, Spanish Steps, Gelateria, and, of course, we also went shopping. And everything was presented very exclusively, as you can believe me: It is something completely different to be shown this city by our new Italian friends Stephani, Chiara and Gaga, than just going there on vacation.

[by Bilal Zaria]

The day started especially well. In Italy, people have a rather light breakfast, with cookies and yoghurt. Today, however, was made for breakfast-hungry Germans: For the first time, we got cheese, ham, eggs, and Nutella.

Our day then really started with a train trip to Monte Seriagio, where we visited an organic farm. Now, in the summer it is the season for tomatoes, strawberries, zucchini and pears. “Only in emergency situations, when big amounts of fruit are endangered, do we use chemicals”, the plantation manager explained. Natural pests, imported from the Netherlands, are used to protect strawberries.

After this hot and educational event, we visited the (cool!) butcher “Salsiccia die Monte San Biagio”, who produces and smokes regionally famous sausages and ham. Right at the beginning, we got something yummy to try. The highlight was the cooling chamber, which we could enter at -1 degrees Celsius. Last but not least, we had some time to relax in a forest, after a tiring and warm day.

An interesting, international experience was made on the return trip: The Italians were lauding Deutsche Bahn for its punctuality, while we were waiting for the italian train for 45 minutes.

(by Leon Horz)
Today was another exciting day for us. After the planning game “Global Reality”, a game about the unequal distribution of of global goods and resources, the day started with an enormous water fight on the former mafia grounds. This was something we very much liked, as already at 11am the temperatures had risen to 30 degrees.

This, like all the other days, had a motto. Today’s motto was “First Working Groups”, and in each group something productive for the camp community was done. The day’s plan did not only include cooking and beauty, but also a social evening, and a photography course. The cooking group made pizza for all the camp members. Those who didn’t want to cook, could ask project leader “Gaga” for a beauty mask and relax. Those looking for action and fun were served by the “Social Evening” group. Action and fun seemed to be very important especially for the German participants, and so most of our group was to be found there. This group created the evening programme, which ended in a big tournament of dodgeball. During all the workshops, lots of photos were made, and then edited and designed by the photo workshop. These workshops strengthened collaboration and supported the communication between the youths.

Our resume of the day: We are tired, and the day was exciting and well-organised. The big two-day hike into the mountains is moving ever closer, and we will prepare for this in the coming days. A final course in knots for all the night owls gave us a preview of what we will face next week.

What’s the matter with sustainable development? Because the topic of ewoca camps 2015 is sustainable development we spent the whole second day to know more about this them. After some energizer we started with the simulation game about global reality. We had to divine into 4 groups – 4 another countries: Germany, Brazil, Poland, Tanzania. The task was to develop the country. It was a little difficult to understand that there are a lot differences between this countries. They have another natural products and technical stuff. The sustainable development was possible when we began to collaborate and thank about economical, environmental, social and cultural aspects.

After lunch’s break we learned how we can introduce the sustainable development to our all the day.  There were 3 workshops:

Cooking:

We prepared a typical Italian food : pizza(hopefully everyone know it) and focaccia (something like pizza but with potatoes inside). The atmosphere during the cooking was very nice, just like in the family. We are singing, especially the romantic Italian songs. Cooking, eating have often to do with love and another positive emotions.

Ola, Ewa, Chiara, Dominika, Asia

 Prendere per la gola/Liebe geht durch den Magen/Przez zoladek do serca!

Housekeeping

It was really funny. Especially when we had the mask on our facesJ . The most important thing is that we learned how to spent money and be friendly for environment.

Wiktoria, Kasia, Stefano, Leon, Veronica

 Social

Our task was to offer some activities for the evening. We had a lot of ideas but we had to respect the place where we were and how many people we are. It was a little difficult to decide how we can do but finally we chosen Volkersball, Zbijany, Palla prigioniera like champion game.

Jana, Braian, Bilal, Mario, Guliano

Media

There has happened a lot on the camp and we keep it on the pictureJ. Then we have to decide which are the best pictures. We were talking about composition etc.. You can see a part of our work below.

Giulia, Dominik, Matteo

Picture for this day

The first (the most important)brazil in Italy+ competicion,Poland in Italy,3polish girls,Tanzania in Italy,mask,kitchen

Ciao! Hallo! Do widzenia!

The international youth camp Gro-UP – Grow up is started on the 30 June in Italy and involves 18 youngsters from Italy, Poland and Germany and 2 responsible per group (6 in total).

The main topic of our camp is the group work in order to reflect on three dimensions of the education for sustainable development: the social,  the economical and the environmental aspects.

The aim is to experience the life of a society in small scale with the objective to discover what are the mechanism for the construction of a sustainable society and how each person can contribute to this goal.

A social group has been defined as two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics and collectively have a sense of unity. On the other hand a group is defined also in terms of those who identify themselves as members of the group. A group of people can be considered, in scale, a little society composed by individuals that contribute to the development of the society itself in different ways. Any individual, alone, can give his/her contribution to the whole group, but it’s the sum of the different contributions that provide the real development of the group as whole.

Be a member of a group, any kind of group, involves different fields of reflection such as: identity, interdependence, respect, awareness and diversity. How we can live with different persons in harmony and without lose our personal identity? How I can recognize myself in a group composed by different people, coming from different cultural backgrounds and life? What steps I have to do and what I have to recognize for feeling myself part of a group?

Those and other questions will be raised up by the participants during the international camp thanks both to different activities organized during the two weeks and the issues they will tackle by living the daily life in this international community.

The activities of the camp will be all related to the group work, give the chance to the participants to understand their roles in the group and to develop skills and abilities to understand also the importance of the role of the others. Trough the methodology of non formal education, outdoor activities, field visits and self-organized moments, the participants will be introduced to the topic of sustainable development, tackling the three dimensions of the concept, by using the metaphor of the group as a society.

In the first two days the participants were involved in group activities, practical workshops and reflective moments where they will experience the life in a group. Concerning the daily life, the participants were divided in several sub-groups ( e.g. kitchen, housekeeping, maintenance works) and they were self organize themselves in every activities of the camp.

We are sleeping in a school and we make the activities in the farmhouse Piano Rosso, in the city of Cisterna di Latina, 50 kms far from Rome. The farmhouse, the field and the vineyard around have been confiscated by the State from the Mafia some years ago and today they are entrusted to the social cooperative “Il Gabbiano” that renovated the house and grow the vineyard, producing wine. The place takes on a symbolic meaning for reflecting upon the social, economical and environmental aspects of the sustainable development. The activities also will be run in the farmhouse and the participants will be involved also in some practical building works for the farmhouse. In the next days we will work also with people with special needs that are working every day in the farmhouse.

We hope that Stefano, Silvia, Chiara, Veronica, Matteo, Mario, Giulia, Gagandeep, Selene, Bilal, Brian, Jana, Giuliano, Leon, Dominika, Dominik, Ewa, Wictoria, Kasia, Asia, Ola will learn and enjoy in the time we will spend together and will have the chance to GRO-UP- Grow up!!!!