Green Mind Xperience

Associazione La Stazione works in the field of local youth politics since 2006. From 2009 – thanks to an agreement made with Municipality of San Miniato – the association has been owner of a Youth Center based in San Miniato, which is a small town in Tuscany, near Florence and Pisa.
Here we organize different kind of activities: as concerns culture and recreation we often organize events, concerts, exhibitions, book presentations. We also try to give some kind of formative opportunities; in fact we organize writing workshops, IT, DIY and kitchen courses. We are also very interested in improving creativity in our territory, for that reason we arrange drawing courses, photography and video workshops, laboratory for graphic designers and web users. In our youth center we also try to be helpful for the youth, offering them support in educational and work decisions; in fact we have a Youth Information Desk, which offers many different types of info for what regards education, training, work, abroad experiences, internships and so on. Moreover, in the center there is also an European Project Development desk.
We have an updated blog where we describe every activity we organize (http://www.centrogiovanilastazione.org/) and a online portal (http://www.5avi.net/) where people can find daily news about work and educational opportunities, international exchanges, and some article about important thematics like environment, mobility, equal opportunities and european citizenship.
Furthermore, we organize biannual courses about the proper use of social networks for public workers (for example librarians) but also young people under 25 years old.

Project introduction:

Our territory host the coexistence of a highly industrial area (tanneries), which has always caused atmospheric and hydrologic pollution. On the other hand, we can found here many organizations and institution which are working for an attempt of safeguard of the environment and for an increase of the awareness of some themes concerning this problems. Also, in our territory it s possible to find many organic farms, trying to work with methods of organic agriculture and to offer to their customers healthy and biological products.
The project “Green Mind Xperience” takes shape in this territory and would like to represent an attempt to observe this local situation and consequently discuss about the environmental problems existing and typical of many areas, not only the one we're talking about. Also, we want to increase the awareness about the real problems of the negligence towards the care for the environment and encourage daily good practices.
It is known that the care towards the environmental good practices has not always been considered important and only in the last years we have experimented the birth of many organizations, associations, youth centers and ethical purchasing groups with the objective of a more responsible life, in a cohabitation with their own territory.

Organization's experience about the theme:

La Stazione has a wide experience in this kind of activities and in organizing events to increase of the environmental awareness. In our youth center we have activated an ethical purchasing group, furnished by local organic farms, we have a second-hand shop and we often organize swap-parties where people can exchange between them things they don't use anymore. We collaborate with Slow Food, an organization involved in the increasing of the attention towards healthy, local and organic food.
We also take part in events concerning this kind of thematics and we always try to involve environmental subjects in each project we organize. We took part in the EWWR 2013 (European Week for Waste Reduction) and we were recognized as one of the finalist associations. On our online newspaper we publish articles about environmental thematics and we also have a dedicated section.

Activities' introduction:

The participants will develop skills that will be useful for their own education and developing, and that will help them share their own experience and the awareness they got.
Through playful activities and role-playing games they will improve their own listening skills and their own critical sense in the evaluation of proposals and situations. Thanks to an horizontal approach, they will be involved in situations where they will have to share their own skills and opinions, being protagonists of every activity.
We will also organize a public meeting with some politics involved in the themes: during this activity the participant will be able to discuss and learn about some decisional dynamics.
One of the final activities will be the realization of a video to share environmental good practices.
In addition to activities closely related to the project there will also be two trips, one in Florence and one in Pisa, two beautiful cities no more than an hour from the place of execution of the project . On the sidelines of the project a blog will be set up, where we will collect the impressions of the participants, the reportage documentation ( photos and video) of the initiative.