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We visited Fort Saint Jachiddu in the morning. It is an ecological park and a fortress building restored by Social Co-operative Scirin. The president of the co-op Sandro Gorgone introduced the morning topic of ”Geo-philosophy and educational activities”.

The name of the fort refers to Maria’s father and there may have lived a hermit called Saint Jachiddu in the place, but there is no proof of this.

The fort was built in the 19th century and abandoned. The co-op restored part of the building in the end of the 1990’s but there was not enough money to complete the restoration. The fort is surrounded by green area where the co-op has created nature trails and organizes educational activities. The fort offers a good place for cultural events like theatre performances, concerts and art workshops like pottery making. There is an accommodation for 8 people in one of the buildings and they also offer meeting facilities, a small chapel, wrought iron museum and a library.

The co-op Scirin promotes Saint Jachiddu and nearby mountain area. They offer guided tours and there are informative boards on the nature trails. The most attractive natural event is the migration of birds from South. This happens every spring and many birds can be seen passing the area among them storks and flamingoes.

The target of the Scirin co-op has been to transform the old fort which is associated with war activities into a place of peace, peace with nature as well as peace among people. Good example of this is the old ammunition storage that has been transformed into a chapel. There are 8 people working in the co-op pr which 6 have another job.

Fort itself belongs to the municipality and they need to have a good relationship with the municipality. Scirin has received some money to restore the building, but there has been a lot of voluntary work involved. Sandro tells that they dream to promote ecological and cultural tourism in the area, even have some horses and donkeys to transport people. So far they are facing a lot of challenges; only few people appreciate the place and come to visit, few schools come with groups, but there is no public transportation to the fort and the road is very bad. They can’t have activities in the fort during the winter as it is very humid and cold.

After the introduction we walked one of the nature trails and took a look at the magnificent view over Messina in 300 meters above the sea level. We also got to taste some local berries and we were introduced to cork oak tree and other typical plants of the area.

Sandro Gorgone is also an assistant professor of philosophy in the University of Messina and he told us about geo-philosophy, which is philosophy of man living on earth. Geo-philosophy aims to a plurality of great spaces that can break the uniformity of the world, in which we live. According to this philosophy each landscape has a soul and each place exist both physically and spiritually. In a landscape three elements are joined: memory (history, stories etc.), symbolic and spiritual sense of direction and identity.

Sandro showed us photos of Italian landscapes that were typically Italian and easily recognized as Italian landscape. He talked about how crisis of rural world leads into crisis of the environment. Agriculture should preserve the landscape and this is in his mind sustainable development. Modern agriculture has created landscapes that are no longer specific for the area, they all look the same wherever they are in the world. According to geo-philosophy quality landscapes are crucial for the well-being of people and we must protect local landscape.

Sandro also urged us that we need to go back to nature, but not in idyllic or nostalgic way. We need to recognize ourselves in the nature and live in peace with the nature.

After the lunch, excellent affair from Rapanui, Olga and Dins gave a presentation of environmental projects in Latvia. They told us about project Footprints and the Clean up day. This clean up day is an annual event that has been organized for 3 years now.

Their target is to be the cleanest country in the world. This is a good challenge as Latvians have a lot of picnics during summer and many times leave their garbage in the forest and the beaches. In this year’s clean up Latvian collected nearly 3000 tons of trash, which was some what less than previous year. They thought that this was a good sign. That maybe Latvian’s have learned to be more tidy and there is less garbage to be collected.

In the 2012 there is an aim to get 100 countries join this Clean up day campaign. Already 60 countries have signed up. Finland and Italy were among the countries that have also done this activity in the past. You can read more about this activity www.letsdoitworld.org

Marjut and Hanna from Finland presented their experiences in volunteering in environmental projects. Marjut had started a volunteer agency in 2008 that recruits volunteers to different animal and nature projects around the world. She shared her motivations doing this. Hanna then told about her volunteer experience in Finland and joining project that Marjut has promoted on her website www.ekomatkaajat.fi/english

Dilek from Turkey shared her thoughts about social entrepreneurship. She told us a story about creatures that lived in the river and clung to rocks so that they would not be swept away by the current. One of these creatures was very bored with this kind of life and started to think that he would like to let go and see what happens, so he told others about his plans. Other creatures called him a fool and told him that he would die if he let go. But he decided to let go anyway and was lifted up by the current. As he was taken past other creatures below, they saw him and were amazed by this creature that could fly. They called him a savior and asked to help them. He told them that he was going on an adventure and they could come if they just let go. But they did not believe him and kept calling him to help, but then he was already gone. Still the creatures in the river tell stories about the savior.

Dilek told about two projects in Turkey. Mikado consulting that has “The future is now bright” project which enables e-mentoring between students and professors. They have created an online sharing platform with talkrooms that are monitored by Mikado team.

Another project is by artist Nuri Kaya. There are photographs taken by blind people and then local writers have written stories to accompany them. They are exhibited on the street where the stories are written in blind writing and photos can be seen. Then the blind and seeing person can interact and talk about the story and the photo. Funding to this project comes from dinner in the pitch black. Seeing people enjoy dinner and a performance in a darkness. They can’t see anything and thus experience how it is to be blind.

In the evening we visited the office of Genio Civile (Civil Engineer Corps) which hosts the Museum of FANGO. Fango is an organization that was formed after the disaster of 2009 when a tropical storm caused a mud slides and floods in villages near by Messina and caused a death of 37 people.

FANGO art collection was started by a writer Dario Fo, a Nobel literature prize winner of 1997, that donated a painting. Now the collection has about 350 art pieces from 220 artists from Italy and around the world. FANGO is a modern art museum that does not have a building, rather the art is exhibited in the public office. FANGO and Genio Civile have a common project, called Montagna ad Arte in which they want to create a mountain of art and place the art pieces together with the civil engineering works in the area where the floods happened. The idea is to pay attention to the security aspects, but also help the villages in the area to create their own identity. They have proposed the project for EU funding as about 350-400 million euros are needed to secure the area. They also want to raise awareness within the local population about the importance and protection of nature.

 

Marjut, Salvatore, Mushin, Mara

 

Personal notes from Marjut:

For me this day was very interesting. I connected the geo-philosophy to the work that FUNGO is doing and what I learned this day made me think of many things and possibilities for my work in Thailand as I am working in a village that was build after the Tsunami of 2004. I can’t call it a community as they do not yet have a common identity and they have in many ways lost more than family, friends or houses. The landscape was changed drastically, they were disconnected from their homes for many months and many people have not returned. Now I am thinking about ways to help them to build the identity for the place and for themselves. Some of that has been done already by creating a community centre where the locals can show their traditions and history of the Island.

I was also about 20 minutes away from Messina when the mudslides closed the street. At the time I was mostly just annoyed that I had to spent extra 3 hours in the bus as we had to go around the area. Later we learned about the casualties of the floods, but only now I really understood what had happened.