Thinking Green in Vitoria-Gasteiz...What a week!

Hey!

First, we would like to say that due to this experience we have had some amazing five days here. We learned new things with the workshops, we had the opportunity to communicate with different people, to see amazing work, to improve our English skills and to visit incredible places in this beautiful city.

On the first day we had some presentations about infographics and interviews. First of all, we would like to say that both the presentations of the interviews and the presentations of the infographics were quite interesting and really helpful. Wonderful work has been done! 

The first thing we saw were the interviews. They were all really different. Some of them had a lot of information about the topic of the project but others did not. Concerning our presentation, the interviews carried out revealed that the interviewees had little knowledge regarding the topic. We had difficulty in compressing the videos due to their size. Therefore, we consider that the video we presented ended up becoming tiring for those who watched it.

Next, every team showed their infographics and, in our opinion, our infographic was a good tool to give more information about sustainable development as it was complete. We focused on the organic farming area in the eight countries in the EU, comparing them to the average of the EU organic farming area and we realized that some countries are more aware of sustainability because they have a big farming area. However, there are some countries where organic sustainability isn’t so important because they have a lower percentage of farming area. We could also show the other teams a company based in Castelo de Paiva called Agrinemus and it was good for them to have some information about organic products in Castelo de Paiva. This company also develops tourist activities. We consider the infographics a good instrument of communication and a way to pass the information. We would also like to say that the training during mobility C1 in Ingolstadt was very useful.

The workshop on the ecological footprint helped us to understand better the concept of sustainable tourism.

On two of the five days spent in Vitoria we had a workshop on Visual Thinking. We think that the techniques learned with the teacher will be very helpful and useful to help us to spread our message to the world.

On Tuesday, 21st January, we visited the Project of Salinas de Añana. We had not only had the opportunity to understand the production processes of the salt flower but also to see the beautiful landscapes around the place and the big variety of flavours that salt can have.

On Thursday, 23rd January, we visited Ataria and the Green Ring Project. We had the possibility to learn more about many species of animals and plants that live there and even about the invasive ones. It was a really enriching guided tour and we think that they are developing a good work there.

The workshop on cooking with Km0 products, on 23rd January, was a very interesting activity for everyone who participated. At our ages, few people are comfortable with the kitchen, kitchen tools and cooking. With the chefs, we learned a lot. We made two dishes. Initially, we made a starter, with plenty of vegetables and with a potato cream made by the chefs. The reviews were diverse but from an overview it was a delicious dish! The last dish was the most adored one! A dish that obviously included vegetables but which were wrapped by a wrap. It was pretty funny to make this dish because at the preparation time we looked like real chefs. Finally, the cooks prepared a delicious dessert quite loved by everyone. It was a very important activity for our development for the future as adults.

On 24th January, the Portuguese team developed a workshop about sustainable development, agriculture and tourism. First, we introduced the topic Sustainability and showed a video about it. Then, an infographic was presented about the organic agriculture in a European vision. We also talked about some organic producers from Castelo de Paiva, like Agrinemus, and the students had the chance to taste organic apple juice and maçazada (marmelade). They loved it!!!  Finally, we showed the students the project mascot and later the team applied a gamified activity using PLICKERS, to ensure the young Spanish students had understood what the project is about. It was easy and nice to work with the Spanish students and we think that this was an extremely fulfilling experience. We recommend this experience to everyone.

When we entered to this project, we knew that if we participated in the mobilities, we would stay with a host-family. For some of us, it was a little bit scary because we had never been away from our families for so long. However, we had embarked very happily in this new adventure. We knew that it would be a grateful experience and a unique opportunity at our age to escape a little from our comfort zone and to learn new things.

This week allowed us to use the English like our mother language and make new friendships across Europe. We also got to know more about Vitoria-Gasteiz which is undoubtedly a very beautiful city.

In addition, we did several activities with our host-families to «break the ice» because, in fact, it may not be very easy at first to keep contact with new people but in spite of our cultural differences we had learnt that we have a lot in common.

The host-families were very friendly and they always tried to make us feel at home.

In the future, we would like to keep the contact with our new friends and visit the other cities where the Erasmus+ Project Thinking Green is being developed. We also hope that we can integrate more projects like this one, because it was an unforgettable week!