Youth are the foundation of the world - starting with Ljubljana

CIVITAS Initiative

In Slovenia, we have a saying which could be translated into: The youth are the foundation of the world. If this is true and if the youth are as aware as those that participated in our ELAN Youth On The Move programme in Ljubljana, we have nothing to be afraid of regarding the future – as it is in their eyes bright and green. Or so it seems when one takes a look at their innovative, educative, smart, interesting and fun(ny) projects, linked to sustainable mobility, which the students produced as a part of selection process for the Student Congress that took place from 24 to 26 May 2011 in Brno.

Its purpose was to share knowledge and experience on sustainable mobility among high school students in all five ELAN cities. ELAN team in Ljubljana decided to have a special selection process for students that later participated at the congress. It organised a special competition: all high schools in the city (32) were invited to join the competition by producing anything linked to sustainable mobility, whether it is art work, an audio-visual product, a song, a play, a performance, a poster etc. 10 groups of students responded to this public tender and they had until 21 March 2011 to submit their projects to be evaluated by CIVITAS ELAN Commission. Only seven of them did … The winners were the authors of the project entitled “You decide/One way or another” –  students of class 2 B from High School of Design and Photography Ljubljana (Srednja šola za oblikovanje in fotografijo Ljubljana), who travelled to Brno to meet their colleagues. Their project was composed of a large model of the city made of waste material (plastic bottles, paper …), divided in half with dark and green area with association to dark or bright future (depending on what we decide to do with it). They presented the solutions to make the mobility in the city better and, in addition, they filmed a short video where they included topics such as traffic safety, waste management, social interactions and experience of a city. “We also gave ourselves another challenge: we tried to ease a cold, senseless world of science and technology. We wanted to wrap it up in a gentle paper of art and beauty …” the authors described. In the end, they found the project to be more challenging than expected, but very useful experience: “Coordination, compromise, change, despair, loss of motivation, even fights: we have experienced them all, but what is important is that we are united again at the end and more than pleased with our effort.” The CIVITAS ELAN team organised a ceremony on 14 April with around 100 participants, a closing open-air event in the city centre, where all seven groups of high school students that handed over their projects presented them to the public, received diplomas and ELAN rewards for their efforts. Their projects show how the students see traffic situation in Ljubljana and what would they do to improve it. The Mayor also attended the event and said a few encouraging words to the students. The project will be displayed or presented again in this year’s European Mobility week.

Author: Vita Kontić

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