Action Projects Slovenia

From the 27th of May to the 5th of June 2006 Izola will be visited by a record-breaking number of youngsters that will stay on the Slovenian coast during the 11th United Games of Nations (UG). The activities on the festival in our small sea town with only 16,000 inhabitants will be even more visible by the great support of the local media and of the sponsors.

200 participants from 17 European countries and India will gather in Izola, and many activities of the festival will be moved to the streets, among the town’s people. Beside our many years’ partners from the UG family (Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Serbia and Montenegro, India) and our twin town of Tolentino from Italy, this year two towns that are likely to become our new twin towns will also join the UG Izola festival (one being from France and the other one from Slovakia). Participants from Turkey and Finland, who last year were for the first time on the UG festival, decided that this year they will return to Izola and add even more of their ideas and help to the programme. These are the two countries that will with the new partners from Estonia, Romania, Norway, Greece and Lithuania contribute to the realization of new workshops. A group from Denmark composed mainly by musicians, which will be participating on the film festival “Kino Otok” (Island Cinema), is also very important for the organization of UG complementary programme.

Due to the growing influence of world policies and goals, which young people become aware of on various meetings around the world, we as the Young Voices of Slovenia have decided to favour sustainable development. Each and every workshop carries a significant message in its essence or even a concrete solution to a specific problem of society. This is how we think to draw guidelines with small initiatives that will enable further steps and development of our target groups, and therefore we will also teach them how to plan projects. Our this year’s motto is FOLLOWtheFACE (face is the logo of the Young Voices Slovenia) encourage youngsters and adults to follow our activities and endeavours, and to carry out themselves an useful action for the society.

• 'Media' workshop

  FOLLOWtheNEWS - working group will be publishing a daily newspaper in English for all the participants and all interested local people (approximately 1,000 copies a day, which will be written, designed and printed by the participants themselves with the help of voluntary journalists)
  
  Magazine working group - will prepare a final informative magazine that will be sent to all households in the region (around 29,000 households with approximately 100,000 inhabitants)
  
  Global Village Project - Mission Control Centre - working group will be responsible for our website and will also make sure that the 17 countries involved in the Global Village Project around the world get all the interesting information about the festival in Izola (in attachment you will find a description of the Mission Control Centre)
  
  Radio working group - will work in a temporary radio studio placed in a local multimedia centre, where the members of the workshop will keep the public informed also by having live announcements on the national radio and by broadcasting on our own radio frequency (in 2005 we had the 95,0 MHz frequency for the whole territory of Slovenia, since the workshop sponsor was the national radio)
  
  Photo working group - will document the festival in Izola by taking daily pictures
  
  TV working group - will make the video-documentation of the festival and it will also produce a 20-minute documentary on the festival in co-operation with the regional TV station. It will be also a coordinating structure for all the reporters around the town
  
  Logistics working group will take care of the punctuality of the programme and of the activities that will be going on during the week.
  

• 'Born Free India' Action project

  In 2002, young people from six United Games of Nations countries built a primary school in India called 'Born Free School'. Around 100 children from streets got the opportunity of free education, which has been led by the volunteers of United Games India. The school still needs some school materials for a normal work, as children and their parents can not afford to pay anything for schooling. That is why the Global Village 2006 will host an action project dedicated to this school. In four days we will try to collect as much school materials as possible (notebooks, pencils, used computers, etc.) which will be sent to India. This action project aims at helping people in need and at showing that with little self-initiative we can improve other people's lives. Youngsters from Primorska region represent an important part of this project, since every school material donated will be most welcomed to young people in India.
  
  Aim: with the local community's help to collect many school materials, which will be later sent to the UG school in India.

• 'Art can be sustainable' Action project

  During previous festivals of United Games (in 2003, 2004 and 2005) we produced each year a sculpture out of waste materials. In 2003 we produced "Lighthouse of ideas" made from old car parts, in 2004 we produced the symbol of United Games called "Born Free" from the material of fire extinguishers and car engines, and in 2005 we produced "The communication pavilion" from metal waste. This year this action project will again produce a sculpture by recycling every day waste material. Each participant will be invited to collaborate in the sculpture creating by sharing his/her inovative ideas. The last phase of the project is to install the final sculpture in the Gallery of the United Games of Nations, where it will stand as a symbol of young, talented youngsters, and will be admired by the gallery's visitors.
  
  Aim: to remind the local community and UG participants how important is to recycle and separate waste materials and how they can be used in a creative way.

• 'Tobacco conspiracy’ Action project

  38.8 % of young people aged between 15 to 24 years in the EU smoke regularly. It is also known that the years between 12 and 18 are crucial for the youngsters to reject or adopt smoking habits. Every second adolescent smoker will eventually die from the negative effects of smoking, and the worst thing is that tobacco industry is well aware of it. This is very alarming information that needs everyone's attention. Young voices realized that we need to do something about it. In this regard, we got in touch with the Slovene tobacco control association, and together we decided to promote the non-smoking between youngsters in an interesting way. We will try to get their attention by showing them the data on how the cigarette smoke harms the smokers and also the people around. Our target group is composed by young people aged 12 to 14 years and we will try to get their attention by plays, which will be performed by participants from various countries. The youngsters in this age usually start to smoke because of their company, which have the idea that a cigarette makes you "cool".
  
  Aim: to present the tobacco industry's plot to the young people and to get their attention to the smoking problem by using interesting methods.

• 'The beauty lies in difference' Action project

  This action project will involve all innovative young people who would like to use their creativity in order to show in the public that difference should be supported and not used as a basis for building prejudices on. The participants of this action project will try to promote the idea of "difference" between people. Products of the action project will be attractive and innovative posters that will be presented at the final presentation and later on hung at all promotion places around the Slovene coast. At the beginning participants will be given only the title 'The beauty lies in difference' and then they will need to implement the whole project by themselves.
  
  Aim: to present the growing problem of racism to the local community and to the UG participants by using innovative methods.

• 'Tourism can be sustainable' Action project

  Izola with its Mediterranean style of building is an attraction to several tourists. As such it needs a map which would connect all the tourist sightseeing places. In this action project we will try to produce such map that will present the old town centre. The tour map will also mention the local craftsmen and artists who have their activities located in the old streets of the town. This is how the tourists visiting Izola will know where to go and where to buy some souvenirs. By doing this we will also help to make the craftsmen and artists' activities survive.
  
  Aim: to produce a map of Izola old town centre, which will connect the main sightseeing spots with the shops and other places that because of their location hardly survive.

• 'Music can be sustainable' action project

  In this action project the youngsters will also show that waste material can be useful as well. The 'lumber room' is a school for rhythm, listening and material music, which transmits experiences and discovers new sound worlds. It is designed as a special percussion workshop, its main characteristics are: firstly the promotion of the 'make it yourself' idea and recycling, and secondly the accession to the music practice. The workshop will give music knowledge from music schools and will present the rich tradition of the 20th century's west music avant-garde as well as the African music tradition. The youngsters will search for new instruments and new sounds for modern times and will learn how to create something collectively. The group performance will be on the 31th of May 2006 on the Svetilnik beach.
  
  Aim: to remind the local community and the UG participants of the present problem of environment pollution and to teach them how the waste material can be used sustainable – e.g. as music instruments.

• 'Izola for everyone' action project

  In co-operation with the Slovene student organization for disabled people the participants will go around the streets of Izola and we will try to find the places which are hardly accessible to people on wheelchairs. We will try to reach almost every street, every sidewalk and public institutions. Young people will have the opportunity to comment on the situation in Izola and give their suggestions for improving the accessibility of these places to people in wheelchairs in order to make Izola a wheelchair-friendly town. The result of the action project will be a DVD with photographs of all places in Izola that are not friendly to people on wheelchairs and with the graphic suggestions of architects on how to improve the situation. We have an agreement with the municipal enterprise director and the mayor of Izola that at the end of the festival will sign a contract saying that they will ensure financial means and solve the inaccessibility problem in one year.
  
  Aim: to search the hardly accessible places to disabled persons in Izola and to identify the defectiveness to be solved in one year.

• Complementary programme

  Since we are going to have so many workshops this year, we will gain lots of diverse products, and therefore we will use them as complementary programme (the opening of the UG gallery, performance of the 'music can be sustainable' workshop, live chain at 'UG School India'). Beside having the traditional food-exchange and the concert of a well-known Slovenian band on the opening of the UG festival, making the biggest live Peace sign, boat trip, camp fire and the final event with 'UG Olimpics', this year we will also have new evening activities in collaboration with the film festival “Kino Otok” (Island Cinema). An additional attention will be given to the music, because we believe that the music strengthen the nice memories on the youth festival. We will also organize several events on a daily basis, which will be set on the streets of Izola, where different theatre, juggler and dance performances as well as sketches and other sorts of entertainment will took place. Certainly, we will not run out of ideas.

Jan Peloza