1. DAY
Arrival day
On a lovely Sunday afternoon, the participants of ‘’My First Step Towards Sustainable Living’’ started gathering in The Backpackers Hostel, Tallinn. An easy-going beginning of the project, a crazy day for the organizers. Settling ourselves in at the cosy hostel, we cooked dinner with the help of some participants. Enjoying the food and starting to get to know each other.
After dinner, we continued with everyone introducing themselves in a big circle, alongside sharing something that is important to them in their lives at the moment. To bring out more fun facts and things people might have in common, we carried on with the ‘Human Bingo’ game. It’s a cool social game, where everyone has to find a person who either has done, likes or can do something specific written in each box of the bingo sheet. Soon enough there was a room full of people talking about skydiving, trying to roll their tongue or counting how many languages they can speak (and much more). We also dealt with the documentation on the first evening, so it would not be a responsibility for the upcoming days and everyone could full-heartedly concentrate on the project. The evening went on with a lovely buzz of conversations, the cheer of table football players and guitar notes in the living room. |
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2. DAY
Day in Tallinn
We decided to kick off the project with a day exploring Tallinn - a taste of the capital before heading to the small island for a week.
The day began with a few energizers on a huge green space not far from the hostel. After that, it was time for a small tour in the center. We divided the participants into three international groups, who all would have a different tour guide (one of the Estonian participants). That meant three different tours, giving each of them a unique overview of Tallinn, which they shared with eachother later. After the tours and some time exploring the Balti Jaam market, we moved on to the Põhjala Factory, to visit an inspiring NGO and an old factory in its’ rise to a cultural-community space. Two lovely ladies from Põhjala and a healthy streetfood truck Skuup - Jaanika and Mirje, had cooked us lunch and were waiting for us at the local community bar Botik. Having enjoyed the delicious lunch, we were offered a tour of the tremendous factory area, giving us an inlook to its’ history, hidden corners and future plans. Truly an inspiring visit. Full of good food and even better ideas, it was time to head for the harbour. Arriving a bit in advance, we even had time for a little windy photoshoot on the pier! After an hour ride on the ferry and a little walk in the rain, we finally made it to our home for the week - Praaga holiday housing. |
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3. DAY
What is sustainable lifestyle?
The first full day on Prangli started off with a further introduction into the project, explaining the program, setting the common rules and also discussing our fears, expectations and cintrubution regarding the upcoming week. We also gave out little notebooks to each participant that they could use during sessions throughout the week. After which it was time to go into the topic of sustainability.
We started by defining together the term ‘sustainable’ for us, mentioning the three pillars - environmental, social and economical sustainabilty, the Sustainable Developnment Goals, the levels on which action can be taken (international, local, personal etc.) as well as a person being sustainable theirselves (being able to keep going both mental and physical health-wise). That led us to a discussion of how one can live a sustainable life. Having made the topic a bit more clear to all of us, we carried on by preparing and presenting in national groups the main challenges regarding sustainability and good examples of measures taken to improve the situation in their countries. In the afternoon, inspired by the examples of measures taken towards a more sustaniable life in different countries, we moved on to the measures we personally can take in our lives. Having brainstormed in international groups, each of them presented at least 5 sustainable practices or life hacks and wrote them down on a common poster. After hearing all the ideas we came up with, it was time for each of us to analyze the different options and how they fit into our lives. For that, we drew a table with three columns - what i’m doing already, would like to apply to my life or which is not for me at the moment - and divided all the good practices between these columns. As the evening arrived, we introdouced our daily reflection system called ‘buddy time’. We organically divided ourselves into pairs with the people we felt that we could share our thoughts with and these people would become our buddys for the week. Every evening, just before dinner, a paper with daily reflection questions regarding the topic of the day were put up on a wall and everyone had an hour to reflect together with their partner and their notebooks. The day ended with the Portugese cultural evening. Local food and drinks, a quiz, reliving moments from Portugese recent history and much more - a night to remember for sure! |
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4. DAY
Social entrepreneurship
For the fourth day of the project, we moved on to the economic pillar of sustainability - specifically entrepreneurship that can add sustainable value to society while also being economically viable. To mix things up a bit and add some extra inspiration to our ideas, our first workshop took place in the port area of Prangli in an old fishery building, now converted into a social space and cultural centre.
Firstly, we discovered what social entrepreneurship was and talked about our own experiences and some examples of social enterprises from our countries. A diverse picture of social entrepreneurship was drawn up by the participants. Next up, we discussed some social issues in our country groups and tried to find an entrepreneurial solution to these problems. The participants could feel what it’s like to come up with business ideas on the go, formulate them into a coherent plan and reflect on the pros and cons of their ideas. This was followed by a pitching contest, where Poland, Romania, Portugal and Estonia all could show in a minute what innovative ideas they came up with in front of a cheering crowd. Some of the ideas were more applicable than others, for sure, but the workshop surely got everybody’s creativity flowing. A practical entrepreneurial workshop was followed by a more theoretical Game of Life. We’re not going to surprise the meaning of the game to the unsuspecting readers, but the discussions that followed afterwards really made us think about the position we have and our own personal choices we make. The evening was capped off with the Polish cultural evening, with food, drinks and surprisingly large amount of Polish dances shared with the whole group. |
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5. DAY
Prangli community
One of the main characters of the project was the island of Prangli itself. It’s remote location and small population lead to a totally different lifestyle that most of us are accustomed to. For the fifth day, it was time to learn about the place around us, which already had become a big part of the project.
The question of maintaining a sustainable community was a big topic when we discussed the island life with helpful locals, some of whom had been living on this small island for most of the century. We heard astonishing stories about the islands past and the challenges it is facing nowadays. Such an opportunity to discover island life was eye-opening, even for the most travelled people (and Estonian participants), since the character of the island life is absolutely unique. Afternoon was a chance for all the participants to give something back to the island community that hosted us and also experience firsthand a sustainable first step they can do without too much of an effort. We went on a tour of Prangli and combined it with picking up trash, giving the participants an example of what a trash hike or plogging (going for a run and picking up trash) might look like. We discovered how trash can be quite invisible to our eyes when we’re not actively looking for it, as our first impressions of a totally clean island was corrected and we saw how trash can actually be found everywhere. The evening ended with the Romanian cultural night, where we discovered Romanian delicacies ,history and the fact that some people were actually able to sing the Romanian-language hit song “Dragostea din tei”. |
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6. DAY
Community day
For the next day, we went deeper into the theory and philosophy of sustainability with two guest workshops given by Alex and Kärt who have a dream of building their own sustainable community. Alex has a background in agriculture and permaculture whereas Kärt’s background is in psychology and spirituality.
With Alex’s workshop, we discussed what does the world sustainability even mean and why is it important. We questioned our preconceived beliefs about the term and about sustainable lifestyles. Alex’s own personal story about dropping out of business school and starting a life in the countryside in agriculture was food for thought for many about what we are really passionate about. This was followed by a workshop where we spoke about how to manage our own personal resources such as our energy and time to live sustainably. The day with our guests definitely made a lot of us think about our own lives and maybe more importantly, we saw two young people who had the bravery to take sustainability to their heart and build their life around it. Sustainably. A deep and reflective day was capped off by a bit more cheerful activities since it was time for the Estonian national evening. Dances, songs and food was plentiful as the participants found out some less known stories about Estonian culture, because apparently there’s more to Estonia than free WiFi. |
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7. DAY
My sustainability
The last day of the activities was a very personal looking one. We built on the topics discussed before about our own personal sustainability.
The day started off with art therapy - one of the resources we can use to build our own sustainable life and happiness. Everybody got a chance to express themselves on a recycled wallpaper and to be fair, you could put together an amazing exhibition with the artworks that were produced. It was amazing to see how differently people approached what was essential an empty canvas. Then it was time for reflecting on the week that we had on Prangli. We went on a personal quest to answer what we learned, what we discovered about the world around us and also about the world within us. All this was done to understand, what would be our first step towards a sustainable lifestyle. Whether it was something like changing a personal habit or building a sustainable garden, we all made a promise to ourselves to do that first step. A very personal first step that was right just for us. Finally, we signed the project off in style - everybody’s footprints were put on a wallpaper with paint to signify the first steps we would be making towards a sustainable lifestyle. A symbolic moment to finish the project with that hopefully changed the lives of not just people participating in the project, but also around us. |
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8. DAY
Goodbye
Finally, it was time to say goodbye. Hugs, tears, smiles and memories were exchanged as we took a boat back to the mainland. Some last moments in Tallinn before everybody took off really helped us solidify the connections we made and the ideas that started to grow in our time in Prangli.
With first steps on everybody’s mind and hopefully another project as well, it was really not a goodbye, but a see-you-later.
With first steps on everybody’s mind and hopefully another project as well, it was really not a goodbye, but a see-you-later.