In spite of the increasing knowledge in envionmental issues, worldwide and european populations, with our public institutions and private companies in the top, still advance too slow in the fight against the main world’s enviornmental problems, specially climate change. Young people are indeed those who will have to find an answer in short and mid term to these challenges; it is very important that besides analyzing and look for solutions to these problems, they are able to spread this knowledge in their surroundings. On the other side, we reckon that photography and image edition are tools which allow personal and profesional deveolpment. This is the framework behind our Project. Therefore, our specific goals are:
– Promote the knowledge of the main evnironmental problems and study the solutions
– Imrove creative skills of the participants in the field of photography and image edition
– Encourage social entrepreneurship
Those goals are fulfilled with other three general aims:
– Create intercultural bonds
– Improvement of foreign language skills (English)
– Improvement of the graphic coverage and sustainability of erasmus+ projects
The project “environment, beautiful environment” actively involved 17 people from 7 different countries. The project features one only activity (movility), and we divided it into three stages: preparation, training course and post-training course.
PREPARATION. During this phase everything was prepared so the movility could be a success. It could be done thanks to multple online meetings between the partners and the organizers and also thanks to physical meetings between the partners and their own participants.
TRAINING COURSE. Those 17 people came to Spain. Following procedures of non-formal education, participants were provided with knowledge and tools related to photography and environment. This way, they were able to elaborate afterwards an environmental document focused on the analysis of causes, the study of potential solutions and the execution of an online awareness campaign.
POST-TRAINING COURSE. This phase had two main roles. The first one, to publish and promote the different results of the exchange, specially the environmental document. Secondly, an awarenes campaign was executed in the context of every partner organisation; besides, the most successful specific workshops and activities from the movility were executed again on a local basis, in every partners venue. Like this, we profited the work and designed materials.
Through the project, we hope we contributed in the creation of mechanisms which allow to raise awareness and protect environment and our health, both through direct learning of the participants and through the campaigns carried out, which spreaded the contents gathered in the environmental document. Participants are expected to have acquired skills related to photography and social entrepreneurship that will offer them more and better professional chances. The project was mainly addressed to youth from the local areas of the partners, but the whole european community could also benefit from it through internet. The environmental document has been the axis the dissemination spinned around, but also the whole Erasmus+ program was a key aspect in this process.
In the long term, one of the main benefits will be the improvement of the environment through the implementation of good practices and raising awareness and the development of tools of social entrepreneurship related to this topic. Also, the improvement in cultural and communication skills that photography means must be considered.