Newsletter #3

The project “Co-creative RETHINKing

for sustainable cities” - CRETHINK - addresses a need for capacity building adults within the public sector and in civil society for cooperating and co-creating shared solutions to societal challenges in European communities.

Participants in the Crethink project finally had the chance to meet each other during a weekend trip to Copenhagen from the 9th – 11th of October. Due to the covid19 situation in Europe, it has been almost impossible to travel but when the opportunity came, partners decided to go ahead and seize it.

 

Afterwards, the partners were interested in learning what the agents gained from the Copenhagen trip regarding their local projects as well as themselves personally.

Below are their answers

Thoughts from Denmark

The Danish Change Agents enjoyed the training and the opportunity to meet and learn from the other change agents. It was very inspiring to hear about the other projects and get a sense of community and being part of a larger project and community that works for sustainable development. It was very beneficial to get more into depth with the different project processes and exchange successes and challenges and learn that perhaps there are many shared challenges that they all have to overcome. The study visits were also very interesting, like the visit to Løs, where we learnt something about Danish culture and mentality when it comes to changing consumer habits. Examples from Miljøpunkt on how to communicate and promote projects and initiatives was also very interesting and the trip to Cristiana especially left a lasting impression on the agents. The in-depth understanding of the history and culture of Christiania and understanding the specific skills and competences it takes to keep it going was very inspiring.

Læs på dansk

Thoughts from Slovenia

Mojca: We are getting new ideas on how to persuade the local community to provide funding to plant trees in vacant public areas. I got even more motivation to support the project. I also received confirmation that we are on the right track. Our project should be further popularized in terms of educating about the importance of trees in the city.

 

Viktorija: After a trip to Copenhagen, we find out what potential we have in our space (city) and how important it is to be aware of it. We are highly motivated as a group to really achieve concrete changes in the awareness of citizens about the importance of green spaces in the city. Now I understand the concept of co-creation in a different way. I am even more aware of the importance of mutual communication and understanding different views on issues.

 

Natalija: Copenhagen trip in a way was a confirmation, that the alternative/experimental practices with cooperation of wide range of different publics will become more and more important, if our goal is to develop more successful and pleasant public, semi-public and semi-private spaces/places. The most important part of the Copenhagen trip for me was a chance to spend more time with team members, to get to know each other in more personal way, which no doubt will result in deepened co-creation process of our group (national and international).

Beri v slovenščini

Thoughts from Italy

The Italian Change Agents found great inspiration in the training in Copenhagen. They received very useful insights for the implementation of the local project both from the visits to local best practices and from the city of Copenhagen in general. Particularly the visit to community regreening projects allowed to collect some practical ideas on how to conduct co-creation and self-construction activities for the tactical urbanism project with school students in Palermo. The democratic practices implemented in Christiania were mind-opening and triggered reflection on the importance of ensuring economic accessibility and social inclusion when implementing sustainable solutions. Last but not least, the encounter with all other change agents and the sharing of common challenges and best practices between groups was also useful to find support and inspiration. This part of the training also sparked the change agents' motivation in the project as they got a more concrete sense of its European and international dimension.

Leggi in italiano

Thoughts from Iceland

For us, the trip to Denmark was a great lesson. During the trip we both got ideas on how we can continue our project as well as a personal experience on how different the projects were. But even though the projects were very different, they have in common that each of them could be used in more places. Everywhere we need to take better care of the environment, reduce waste, and adopt sustainable thinking. Getting ideas from other groups on how to reach people, what works and what doesn't work was very instructive.

Working to reduce waste, ie. Zero-Waste is an eternal project. Seeing with our own eyes how a small community like Christiania is far ahead in terms of a sustainable society, gave us increased optimism that we can go further with reuse and recycling than we already do. For our small town in Hveragerdi, it is very important in what way we spend our money, so it is good to see how others can maximize the use of old things and can counteract the waste we already have. We believe that we will be able to make good use of our experience and make the Zero-Waste project even more established among the townspeople than it has already been done.

 

Additionally, Anton from Iceland said this: Personally, it was fun to meet and get to know other participants and see/hear about their projects. It was also great to be able use the flight over to meet some family members and therefore reduce the flight trip as well as carbon footprint!

 

During the trip the Icelandic team got allot of new ideas, f. ex to make a little repair corner in the local mall in Hveragerdi to encourage people to waste less and re-use more by giving their “things” and after life. Also, it was great to see all these small green community gardens/areas and it gave us ideas in general on how to better our little town, even though that is not relevant for this project perse.

Lesa á íslensku

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