Abroad // Youth Exchange “Eco-Education” in Coma Ruga, Spain

If I should describe the Eco-Education project in three words it would be:

Outdoors all the time.

Well now its 4 but you get the idea. We were given a lot of opportunities to do different kinds of work in nature and at the beach. Teamwork and communication always played a big role und together we were able to accomplish some really cool things.

We build a big fence for a small nature reserve of rare plants at the beach of Coma Ruga, build our own solar cooking pots (wich didn’t quite work, but that is not the point. We tried…), made a compost station for a school (that one worked) and a lot of other interesting things.

In the end it wasn’t about the results but about the process. We didn’t just learn about plants and solar cooking, we opened our minds about topics like sustainability, environmental friendly ways of living (even if you just do small things), recycling, pollution, climate change, greenhouse effect and so much more.

The best thing about the project were the people!!

We had a good time singing, dancing ore discussing our believes together. We respected each other as we are and were open and interested about all the other cultures and countries we were going to meet.

I learned a lot about other peoples perspectives on things. Coming from a more ore less rich and developed country (Germany) I had other things in mind when talking about environmental issues then people from every other country of course. The way of doing things and discussing things have been different as well. I have thought a lot about us being so different in many ways but at the same time being all the same. The „all being the same“ – part outweighed the other one on this project by far. We just had so much fun together swimming ore exploring the near by towns wich are beautiful by the way, that I felt surrounded by a big big family.

As it is with families sometimes you have differences in point of views and get into arguments with each other but in the end you solve your problems in a healthy and of course non violent way and everything is fine again.

Anyways, I hope you could get a good overall fell about my experience I wish you good luck finding your future Erasmus+ project.

Milan