Bottles 2 Boats

Date/time
Date(s) - 21/10/2019 - 21/11/2019
All day

Locality
Kalamata, Greece

Project type

• EVS

Selected participants

Based on the idea of re-use we have managed to convert plastic water bottles, with an innovative technological method, into optimist sailing boats with the specifications set by the sailing federations. Bottles to Boats proposes a holistic approach to the phenomenon of excessive use of plastic, promotes the awareness and education of children and young people and combines the reuse of plastic with sport and active life, an issue that is also crucial in our time. It was a European Solidarity Corps project designed to involve young people with fewer opportunities in a voluntary teams activity. It usesd innovative youth working methods, combining technology and manual work to build optimist-type sailing boats entirely from water bottles that students from the schools of Messinia region, collect and crush into flakes, as part of an integrated educational and environmental cycle.

The project required a high level of commitment from the side of the volunteer, sense of solidarity and tolerance and willingness to work within a team. The activities of this project were structured in a way as to facilitate the learning outcomes and the skills development of the volunteers. The methods used were be based on non-formal learning and skills exchange (peer to peer, learning by doing, different workshops, experiential learning, etc).

The volunteer’s tasks were:

• participation in the workshops
• preparation and maintenance of materials and working spaces
• participation in all activities of the project
• extruding plastic bottles into cords
• weaving cords into nets
• building sailboats from the plastic nets
• participation in organizing the public event
• organizing activities to raise environmental awareness and promote the project
• documenting (taking pictures, videos, etc);
• writing articles and testimonies about the activities

Volunteers were from France , Spain , Poland , Italy , Portugal , Romania , Estonia and Slovakia .