One week between the river and the sea in Portugal

Alina Tudorache: The experience in Portugal has made me not only learn new things that I wouldn't have tried on my own, but it has also made me fall in love with places I wouldn't have got to anytime soon. I was pleasantly surprised by the Portuguese children's desire to work with us, to get to know us and mostly, I was surprised by the things they learn in school. I think that this mobility, even if it was one with quite busy days, made me learn more about people, culture, and their customs than I would have learned on my own.

I also learned how many wonderful things and creatures the ocean hosts and how careful we should be to protect this environment that is so useful to us. The documentation visits at the Oceanario, at the Museums of divers, the volunteering activity on the beach and the multinational workshops have offered us the possibility to collaborate and learn from one another which is the best part of the Erasmus experience.

I will definitely not forget this experience and I will appreciate every memory here. I will always remind myself that when I take care of the environment, I take care of myself.

Anastasia Grecu: I consider that the Erasmus+ mobility to Portugal, Almada, has brought me to three main stages; first, going into the, unknown: meeting new people, hearing a new language, seeing new places and getting out of my comfort zone.

In the second stage, after a few days, the “strangers” that we had met became our friends, the places that had been foreign to us slowly began to feel like home and their culture was not so strange to us anymore. The last stage was, unfortunately, the saddest one, where we had to say goodbye, leaving with beautiful memories and with the knowledge that we gained, making promises to see each other again.

I am very impressed by the influence that only one week in this mobility had over me and my life. I realized that you can learn new things in so many ways, not just the traditional ones, and I am more and more fascinated about the world that we live in. The workshop on Global Warming was the best “lesson” I could sit on environmental issues and all participants had the same thought: why don’t we do this at school? I spent a week “between the river and the sea” but I also feel like I learned much more about the insides, the species, as well as about the problems that they face. I realized that we have to protect the environment at all costs if we really want to have a planet for future generations.

Delia Musat: Act for Environment, Erasmus+ is a great project that combines learning and interacting with the others, improving social skills and gaining knowledge. The theme is really important and we believe that we raised awareness through the presentations on plastic pollution in our waters and actually acting for the environment by cleaning the beach and removing invasive species from the trees.

The mobility gave me the opportunity to visit a gorgeous place and meet wonderful people. We started as strangers but through the activities we have done together we have got to know each other better and I even became friends with some of the people there. My favourite activities were the workshops in which we had to form international teams, because we had to get out of our comfort zone and interact with everyone in the group. I really liked it because that's how I started talking to one of the girls and we ended up having a lot in common. Moreover, I saw the ocean for the first time in my life and it was an unforgettable experience. I enjoyed the entire week and I am excited to keep in contact with the friends I made there in Almada and from whom I have learnt so much!

Andreea Militaru: This mobility has made me realize two things about myself: one, I can handle any situation that's given to me and two, I’m surer on myself than ever. Although Portugal wasn't the first country I went to through Erasmus, I still found myself be in love with the activities and workshops. I met new people and we worked together on finding solutions for the sea and rivers that are affected because of global warming. We presented our projects about water pollution in our country and what we can do to fight it, thus discovering how much we actually have in common and how local authorities have slowly started to take different measures. We also had the opportunity to learn from our partners about how they deal with it in their countries realizing that we all do a little something to help and make a difference.

Besides this, we also had documentation visits such as our workshop at the Oceanáiro de Lisboa where we had a marine educator explaining us different environmental concepts and we talked about the greenhouse effect and how that can affect the marine life. Then we had a visit around the aquarium where we saw how they help and protect the species. But everything must come to an end. We left with the knowledge about the marine life as well as the memories, making a promise to ourselves of what we'll do in our daily lives to be more sustainable and eco-friendlier. We also worked together to provide solutions to different problems and we used our critical thinking to make real-life analysis and presentations in multinational teams. We did volunteer work on the beach by collecting the rubbish and also cutting invasive plants.

We spent a week" between the river and the sea" where we learned about how affected the water life is by the actions of people, how we are unfortunately killing the whole ecosystem with our recklessness and how little steps can make a huge difference. So, we do have to Act now, to protect this beautiful planet!