At the beginning of May, ALDA’s Environment & Climate (E&C) Hub Team traveled to Nicosia (Cyprus) to participate in a week-long training course on Active Ageing and Nature Conservation, as part of the Grey4Green Erasmus+ project, that aims to eliminate the social exclusion experienced by the Elderly while at the same time joining the fight for sustainability and climate change.
The training course, which brought together around 20 participants from Iceland, Portugal, Italy, and Denmark – was held by The Municipality of Lousada and Bioliving and it tackled various subjects such as concepts of ecology and nature, concepts on Active ageing, Volunteering programmes for nature conservation, etc.
Considering that part of the new Hub strategy of ALDA is focused on the engagement of its members, the E&C Hub invited representatives of Biosphaera (Italy) and the Union of Towns and Cities of Slovakia (Slovakia) to attend the course in Cyprus.
In addition to this, at the end of the training, the E&C Hub organised a networking meeting including Bisophaera, the Union of Towns and Cities of Slovakia, and Hub Nicosia, which kindly hosted the encounter.
Representing the HUB, there were Valeria Fantini, EU Project Manager and Coordinator of the Environment & Climate Hub, who introduced its objectives, themes, activities, and current and upcoming projects; Elena Fuerler, Project Developer and co-chair for the Development Department, who introduced the EU programmes available to best work on these topics Virginia Stimilli, Junior Project Manager with a focus on Environment and Lizeth López – Project Manager Assistant of the Hub.
Environment and climate issues were key topic of the meeting
As for ALDA’s Members, those who were present were:
Hub Nicosia, represented by Dora Heracleous– Project Manager, and Andriana Lagoudes – Project Officer, is an educational NGO that aims to mobilize young people and provides learning opportunities to strengthen skills such as empowerment, democratic participation, and active citizenship around its main themes: youth, migration, gender, and environment.
Biosphaera, represented by Francesco Busato – Education Department Manager, is a social cooperative in the Veneto, Trentino, and Friuli Venezia Giulia regions in the field of scientific education, and services for the territory and tourism. They actively participate in and promote initiatives for the protection, enhancement, and conservation of the territory and its environmental assets and their main focus is the dissemination and education on environmental and cultural issues.
The Union of Towns and Cities of Slovakia (UTCS), represented by Natalia Shovkoplias – Project Manager, was established as a voluntary association of local governments in Slovakia with the support of twelve towns and cities. Its main objective is to promote mutual cooperation between cities with the aim to achieve, inter alia, the restoration, and protection of the environment through education and training, public administration reform, and regional policy.
This was an opportunity for ALDA to strengthen the relationship with our members and to support the creation of synergies with and among them on the topic of environment and climate.
We look forward to seeing all the activities and ideas that came out of this meeting and will share them with you through our information channels.