Diary | YRE Litter Less Cascais – Portugal
GROUP 2

Positive:

  • I like to work in groups.
  • Paula presentation was very informative of issues I didn’t know of before.
  • I feel more aware of other issues that are very important but have not gained any recognition.
  • Paula added that by us letting plastic into the sea we are impacting ourselves because we eat the fishes that are being impacted by the litter.
  • I really enjoyed the sightseeing we did today
  • the presentations today
  • photographer workshop, so I refreshed my knowledge
  • no discrimination
  • hotel and town are good
  • presentations (getting more interesting information)

Negative

  • Do the interview while we want to eat.
  • Insufficient to drink.
  • Food is sometimes cold.
  • Unfortunately I can´t do a lot to help my team because of level of my English, but I am glad that it was possible to help as photographer.
  • Paula came late (understandable) so, it was difficult to ask as many questions as we would like.
GROUP 5

Impressions of Portugal

  • Expected to learn how to save the enviroment, for example plastic because in germany they have a plastic recycling program and wanted to see contrast between the two countries
  • Expected to learn about the waste managment system in portugal in comparison to other countries
  • Expected to learn new things that can be applied to home country
  • Communicate with people for other countries and make new friends
  • Meeting new people and learning new cultures
  • Working together with people from other countries to come up with ways to make a change
  • Expected students to understand the common problem of litter on a global stage and come up with solutions (teacher)
  • Learning things from other countries that we can bring back to our home countries and share with others(teacher)

Litter in your Home Country

  • Germany- community service to pick up litter on street
  • Turkey- people recently started to recycle
  • Slovakia- beginning to seperate waste but, waste seperation is not always present but progressing well and taught in school
  • Macedonia- lots of litter in the streets and the goverment has introduced recycling and is still in progress.
  • Canada- waste managment is present but the cost of facilties affects the proper disposal of recycled materials
  • Italy- In the south there is issues with the waste managment but in the north they have begun recycling campaign.
  • Israel- recycling is present but the proper seperation is progressing. Due to the need to seperate food their is creating a disposable culture
GROUP 6

Day 2 – Reflection By: Koren Shayb
We started the day around 9:30 by walking to Hotel Baía. We were given free time so we went to the beach on Cascais Bay. There were dead jellyfish on the shore and we took lots of pictures of them.
Around 10am, we listened to an inspirational speech by the creator of YRE and the first Portuguese winner. The speech was presented as an interview which was very interesting. Afterwards we had a coffee break and conducted our own interview on Guilhermina Galego from GEOTA. Her English made it harder to interview her but she was very friendly and tried her best. After the interview we listened to two more speeches which related more to the two videos that I made for YRE.
After lunch I attended the video workshop which was very detailed and educational. I could tell the speaker was very knowledgeable but I wish she had related to the environment throughout her whole presentation.During the evening I worked with my awesome group to summarize the interview and write this reflection.

Diary Day 2, Alwine Henning
In the morning we attended some presentations in the Hotel Baía, after that we prepared some questions for the interview with Guilhermina (GEOTA(. We talked about the protection of the Portuguese beaches (sea coast) while standing near the bay where we had a beautiful view of the Atlantic Ocean. We had some difficulties with communicating, but in the end we finished the interview with a great result. We listened to a couple of presentations after the interview, of which I mostly enjoyed the one about the littering of our oceans. I didn’t know about plastic beads in cosmetic products before, and it made me want to be more aware about my purchases in the drugstore.

After lunch we attended workshops to learn more about writing articles, shooting videos and films and taking photographs. The journalist who hosted the article workshop was very kind, but I didn’t learn a ton of new stuff. We regrouped after that to convert our notes into a written interview, which was the most enthusiastic part of the day because we had a lot of fun in the group. After dinner we attended the Cultural Night in which every county presented a traditional food and showed songs, dances and videos representing their culture. I especially enjoyed the Slovakian performance at the end of the night, in which we all danced together.

Diary Day 3, Alwine Henning
Today we completed our information collection about the Cascais Marina, this time concentrating on the first FEE-project “Blue Flag”. Catarina picked us up at the hotel and we went for a walk to the main port of the village. When we arrived, the Cascais Marina staff gave us a guided tour in which we had to check different criterias for the Blue Flag certification. The surrounding was really enjoyable and we even met little Russell Terriers in life vests.
After lunch we decided to split our group, so one part could work on the photo series and the other ones, in our case the native English speakers, could concentrate on the article.
We finished our work successfully and all spread into different parts of Cascais and Lisbon.
I was really looking forward to the evening and the conversations with all the other particpants.

Reflection Day 3 By: Mert Gokturk
I woke up at 8:00 and went to breakfast after taking a shower. The breakfast was good, not as good as Turkish breakfast but it was nice. Then I met up in the lobby with the rest of my group and we went met Catarina Goncalves who is a representative for Blue Flag. She briefed us on the trip and gave us a checklist for the marina. Afterwards we walked to the marina and we met two employees who kindly showed us around. We received a map and we filled out the checklist that assessed the marina’s environmental responsiveness. At the marina we saw fish, a jellyfish, litter and some oil in the water. There was a variety of beautiful boats. We learned about the marina and how to take care of it in regards to the environment. We also learned what the Blue Flag eco-label is and how difficult it is to earn the label. We saw litter that was washed up into the rocks and can’t be removed easily. I felt bad for the users of the marina and also for the fish because of the litter. We also saw two small dogs in lifejackets. I became better friends with my group which I had to join late. We walked back to the hotel past the beach. I also noticed that the beach had a lot of litter and that the sea was cloudy. In Turkey I have never noticed litter like this on the beaches or marinas so I feel bad for the Portuguese people. Afterwards we started working on our articles and photo story. After working for a while we took a break for lunch and then returned to finish our articles. I look forward to tomorrow.

GROUP 7

 Day 1 (31-10-2014)

On our first day in Cascais, our group went into the Hotel Baia to receive a welcome session from the FEE, ABAE, Cascais municipality, Environmental and Education Ministry representatives. At 10 o’clock in the morning we stayed for an inspirational speech from Philippe Saugie, the YRE creator, and from Pedro Marcelino, an “old” YRE, where they talked about their experiences and current projects.
At 11 o’clock we had our coffee break, in which we did an interview with Nuno Vinagre, the Manager of Cascais Ambiente. After we finished our interview we got another inspirational speech from Paula Sobral, from the company Marlisco, and from Nuno Vinagre, the one we interviewed.

We had lunch at around 13pm and after that we went into different workshops, in which some of us went into the writing workshop, others to the video workshop and the rest into the photo workshop. From what we talked about, the ones that went into the Photo and Writing workshops enjoyed it a lot, while the ones that went into the Video workshop didn’t like it so much, they thought that they would interact with programs and learn how to use them instead of just listening to some explanations.
It was around 18pm when we went back into the Hotel Baia, but this time our group went alone, and we did an interview with the Manager and Director of the Hotel, João Coruche, in which he showed us around the hotel and explained to us how they try to maintain their hotel so ECO friendly.
After diner we did a cultural party with the rest of the foreign people, in which we had a “blast” and we really enjoyed ourselves.

Day 2 (1-11-2014)
Today we didn’t have to wake up as early as the rest of the groups, because they went to do their interview during the morning, while we had already done it yesterday. So we spent our morning working in our project.
Since we didn’t finish everything before lunch, we had to finish everything during the afternoon.
After we were done, we spent the rest of the time doing whatever we felt like doing.
During the night, after diner, we had a talent show we most the people from this mission.