Magazine TC New Values for Better Future

Editorial:Editorial:New values for a better future under construction in Thasos Island

Workshops: Workshops: Different workshops, different ways of learning

Trip:Trip:Learning about public spaces around Thasos

Tool:Tool:Creating the pedagogical tool

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Table of contentTable of content

NewNew values values for a betterfor a better futurefuture

under construction in under construction in Thasos IslandThasos Island

Authors: Martina Linzer, Martina Socha, Vanessa Coppola and Iro Patseli

Around thirty young Europeans from Greece, Spain, Czech Republic, Italy, Ro-mania, France, Bulgaria, Latvia, Poland, Turkey and Austria came together fora great reason: To find innovative solutions on how to use abandoned publicspaces by creating their own entrepreneurial ideas with the youth of theircountries! The training course financed in the framework of the Erasmus plus-Programme is hosted and organized by the non-formal group “Forward it” co-ming from Thasos. The project kicked-off on 7th of May 2015 and during 9days the international participants will realize targeted activities to reachtheir common objectives for a better future! The involvement of the local com-munity and the exchange of ideas and know-how with them is essential forthe programme. The inhabitants of Thasos should be delighted to see so muchenergy and new spirit from the side of the young generation.The international participants aged between 18 and 32 years were asked torepresent their countries and culinary customs during the first day. Theywere dealing with topics such as social initiatives and best practice exampleson how to further develop the “abandoned spaces and areas” in their surroun-ding focusing on entrepreneurial solutions. During the intercultural nightthey talked and experienced different traditions, music and typical food in theCultural Center of Thasos. The young Europeans got more aware on EuropeanUnion´s diversity, and also got sensitized for the biggest problems and cha-llenges in each country. Through developing common sustainable businessideas and new projects we as active citizens can give solutions to these cha-llenges.Deeper understanding of intercultural relations and the disappearance of ste-reotypes about other countries are the positive side effects of such encoun-ters. Overall, the objective of the project is to promote the youths’ activeentrepreneurial spirit in general and creativity. By creating social businessideas the participants enlarge their know-how on green economy, fundraisingand project management.Throughout the training course, the participants take part in different works-hops and activities such as sharing their experiences, discussing problems,meeting with local entrepreneurs and guides and visiting the area for gettinginspired for new perspectives.By the end of the project an official awarding ceremony for the YouthPass willbe organized together with local community in order to present the best en-trepreneurial ideas and the thematic educational tool. The participants high-light the importance of this encounter and the manifold opportunities theyfind for networking and the creation of new projects in their countries. Foreverybody it is a great opportunity to encourage innovation and creativity, in-tellectual and artistic freedom, social business ideas and cultural exchange.In the near future the participants will spread their know-how in their localcommunities, share what they learned and raise positive awareness about in-tercultural business and sustainable thinking in the non-formal educationalsector, because “In the middle of every difficulty lies an opportunity. Wherethere 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!”

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Author: Sabrina Schifrer

On the second day of the training course we did the presentations of solutionsfor abandoned spaces in Austria, Greece, Latvia, France and Bulgaria. We le-arned a lot about different solutions. For example a mountain that was con-verted into a motocross festival, or initiatives about civic involvement (CartonPlain) in the city. A guest was also attending the training course for explainingus his social business at the mainland of Greece. He works with Xeolith, anda grain that almost was extinguished in order to make money for his otherprojects in the sector of art and ecohouses. He explained us his new businessideas and was eager to communicate with the people from the different coun-tries.

In the afternoon we were having group discussions about how municipalitiesare managing their public spaces. We found out that there are different pro-cedures in the countries that are more or less functioning. In order to changethem a movement can be created to express a need and that the municipalitywill follow that movement and fullfill their needs. Beneath that we saw thatyoungsters are an important part of society and take over the role of change-makers – 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 oftwo people from different countries we were finding out our accomplished le-arning objectives so far.

Different workshopsworkshops,, different

ways of learninglearning

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Author: Alexandra Murcia

The third of the Training Course was dedicated to understand how can youngpeople take an active role in their public areas of their communities. So thegroup started the working day with a building-group energizer which consis-ted in a “hidden hands race” which was very funny and accomplished its aimperfectly.

After the preparation, Attila explained the group the tasks for the morning.At this time people should identify some concrete abandoned public space intheir local community and think about an idea of which new use could begiven to the area. For this activity the participants were divided in five groupsand went outside a sunny Sunday morning to debate, think, work and puttingtheir findings together. After this process, each group explained to the otherstheir conclusions. As it is important to learn but also to do, after the theore-tical work came the practical one. The same groups were given an exampletype of an abandoned public space (as an abandoned building, an open-airarea, a wall, etc) and had to think together about an specific new use for it,andthe process to make it real, from the very beggining (the idea), passing to theprocess to make it real (different fases to achieve the aim) until the end (theidea made real). To show all this complex process, the groups had to explainall this work in a role play where everyone took a role on the process and, likein a theatre play, scened it. This role play helped to make understand the restof the group graphically their own ideas but also to be more conscious aboutthe work made.

After lunch, as it was Mothers's Day in Thassos and there were some celebra-tions, singings, etc inside our work place, the “office” was moved to the stre-ets in the island. Each of the existing five groups were given a concrete areaof 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 givento those places. Every group was given a map with the specific area to rese-arch and got into know it. It was an interesting activity to discover new spacesin the area, to interact with locals and also to watch with different eyes anabandoned space, more like an opportunity to make something good from itmore than an ugly or unuseful place. After this interesting workhop, eachgroup exposed its conclussions to the others in an amphitheatre at the portand it was the final scene of a fruitful journey. Curtain falls.

Author: Silvia López

On the second and fifth day, we had the honour of being joint by two profes-sionals in the field of social entrepreneurship. Adonis Koutsoumbas is an ar-tist based in Xanthi region where he participates in different social business.He is producer of natural and ecological cob, but also he builds ecohouses inthe area. On the other hand, Panagiotis Raftopoulos is a doctor and managerof a nursery business in Thasos. Mr Raftopoulos is a politician and part of themunicipal council, as well, and is in charge of public companies. Both guestsshared their experience with us and it was very useful to learn how social en-trepreneurship works generally in Greece and concretely in Thasos. Their spe-eches were a good opportunity to know different local and internationaloptions to finance these types of businesses in Europe but also to be awareof the difficulties that social entrepreneurship must face to grow and succeed.

Panagiotis RaftopoulosPanagiotis Raftopoulos Adonis KoutsoumbasAdonis Koutsoumbas

Authors: Dominique Altschuck, Amélie Perocheau and Egija Ēdelmane

It's nine fifteen, after having swallowed quickly our breakfast, we jump in thebus 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 bysome 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 otherplaces of the island.We strated our walk by acceding to an "abandoned" playground, situated neara small religious place, which is in contrast still used by people.We noticed since we arrived in Greece, that most of the public spaces aban-doned that are shown to us are playgrounds : we wonder if it is a real proble-matic of the island, and what is the reason why people don't take care of theseareas ?Maybe the way of playing changed these last years and games proposed arenot adapted anymore to the needs of the children?

The village is really nice, there are trees everywhere and plants crowding inall the spaces. We are impressed by the care and the beauty given to the frontof 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 ofFrance, were people have to take care of their houses and put plants in orderto 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 thespaces with nature?Anyway, it's beautiful...

LearningLearning about public spacespublic spaces

around ThasosThasos

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We continue our walk and we follow the small river : it's really complicated topass 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 thinkthe accessibility of public spaces for everyone: people with disability for exam-ple.In this sense, It would be impossible for a person using a wheel chair to passthis area. On the other hand, changing this street to improve the accessibility wouldcompletely change the aspect and the authentic atmospher of this cute pas-sage.What is the priority: The accessibility or conserving the patrimony?This is all the challenge of public authorities and urban planners to think in-telligently 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 theplastic 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 qua-lity of the publish equipment... Or are they private lamps ?

We end the visit of the village by passing by the olive oil factory, where awoman welcomes us and explains us the history of the building, and the pro-cess of creation of olive oil.

The last part of the day takes part in the school of Prinos. Our challenge is tothink about the structure of four different public spaces surrounding theschool.Children and people from mother's association of the school joined us to giveus information about the context. They are also here to think with us, andfind new ideas.We divided ourselves in groups to build makets and to prototype some of theideas: 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 : theschool doesn't have a lot of money to invest, and some propositions will bedifficult to realise.

Another group created a collaborative methodology that would be interestingto experiment in order to implicate not only children and professors of theschool 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 thinkcollaboratively this problematic.

As the name says ("pubic space") is public, which means that everyone can useit and everyone should have ideas to improve these spaces.The diversity of points of view will be the richness of the process, and theforce 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 theCreating the pedagogical pedagogical tooltool

Authors: María Márquez and Elena Prieto

Last morning was the first time we reviewed the list of the task that shouldbe done during the previous days in order to finish the content of the web-site. All together we got to the conclusion that we should put another op-tion in the webpage called “download and links” and we saw the provisionalfinal 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) andif we would have chosen another one. In the second part of the morning we were doing one quite interesting ac-tivity called “Open Space”. We were 10 countries with 30 people participa-ting in this training so the ideas was that each one had to put one ideaabout their future project in one post-it and then we explained what theidea consists in. The key of this method is to create partnership for futureproject. So we divided in 3 groups and we had 20 minutes in each round totalk about the ideas with who had it. Some of the ideas were:1. Co working spaces cooperation’s.2. Thematic walks3. 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” withwho and where is going to take place.The last part of the morning was about the competences and skills that wewere learning and writing in computer in order to get the diploma of thecourse. After that as a conclusion of the course we were talking in a circleabout the things that we were learning, how we felt, which the feeling isand which things about the program should be improved.

Last three days of training, we had a very important task. We had to createand design a pedagogical tool which will support youth and youth workersin the difficult proccess of becoming a social entrepreneur who deal withpublic spaces. We decided that our tool will be a website that will includedefinitions, examples of good practices, interesting links and other impor-tant information. We worked in groups to create all the content and it wasgreat experience to be able to work as a team and finalize a first version ofthe tool.

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

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This publication only reflects the views of the authors, and the Euro-

pean Commission cannot be held responsible for any

use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Edited by Silvia López Talens