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Star Gazy Boat Balaton
Start date: May 1, 2015, End date: Dec 31, 2015 PROJECT  FINISHED 

This project came as a direct result of the past six Star Gazy Boat Projects realized in 2011, 2012 and 2013 ,2014. The projects have made an important impact into young people's life and motivated us to go for a Hungarian project. We have rebuilt the boat not only to beneficiate the volunteers from it, but for the local community. Besides of it's symbolic value it could be a true contribution for the village. As part of the documentation, we involved the volunteers to work with us on a short film. With this opportunity volunteers were be able to gain experience in foto shooting and film making and were then able to realise a film project on their own. This film project had something to do with the young volunteers and with the community of the small village of Örvényes therefore both parties the community and the volunteers could gain from the film. The third part was the collaboration with the Balaton Uplands National Park. Within this cooperation the volunteers were able to achieve environmental awareness and also saw how dependent people are in rural areas from nature in this case especially the lake Balaton. The outcome was that the volunteers were helping the community by keeping environment clean and the volunteers were able as mentioned above to gain environmental awareness. The Ruckenwind methodology for engaging with young people from backgrounds of severely restricted opportunity in international work, has been developed over the last six years and now has recognition for its achievements right across the European Union. The ‘Star Gazy’ initiative has a proven potential opportunity to give a small group of young people facing significant challenges the chance to learn some new, practical skills at the same time as developing their appreciation of being citizens in a wider Europe. We were applying without identified names of potential volunteers because from our experience in working with youngsters with fewer opportunities (NEET) it mostly, that they decided about their participation within the last 4 weeks before the project starts. So it is important for us that we didn´t have to name the volunteers in advance. The project hosted 4 volunteers from Austria, Italy and Estonia working together over 3 weeks to renovate and restore an old fishing boat in the small village of Örvényes, Hungary. All of the volunteers drawn from backgrounds of very restricted opportunity and came to learn a variety of practical ‘shipwright-type’ skills as well as the softer skills of team playing, team leadership and cross-cultural communication which will serve them well as they progress through the rest of their lives. The Youthpass were used, not only as a recognition of the volunteer’s non-formal learning outcomes, but also to structure and frame their individual learning plans. The boat itself, a tangible, touchable object, was also a symbol or metaphor of the approach and objectives of this project and on the other hand the film - were symbols of: - The volunteers’ life journies (e.g their experience of rough conditions/stormy weather through to successful new beginnings) - The boat’s history – having once been a successful fishing vessel, damage through use, disuse and age means it was desperately in need of improvement and renovation - The boat - a bridge between history and the 21st century environment, a linking across generations. - From filming to cutting and editing the volunteers were involved in the whole process and got the chance to face different tasks in the development of a film. On completion of the restoration, the volunteers, ceremoniously, took the boat out onto the lake under the direction of an expert fisherman and went fishing. At the end of the project the boat remained in the community as a resource to be used by local youth, future groups of volunteers and other community organisations. The same was meant for the film the finished production was screened in the village in our micro region in our Leader Local Action Group as well in all of the partner organizations' countries. Each the community and the volunteers got an edition for their personal use. The ‘star gazy’ name was taken from a Cornish (the first "Star Gazy" project's location in the UK) fish speciality strongly associated with the well-known fishing village of Mousehole. The environmental project ended in an exhibition to sensibilisate the local community and share the success of the project.
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