Saturday, 21st of March 2015

What can we do?

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Topics of the Day

  • Water Footprint of the Food of the Training
  • Workshop: Ideas for new Projects
  • Final Evaluation

LAST DAY AND CONCLUSION – 21.03.2015
1. Ideas – Workshop of ideas related to action perspectives about sustainability and water

Question: “What was the most important thought for every participant?”

Method:
– Every participant writes an important thought with his/her name on a card
– Categorize the cards
– Form groups for every category

– Create a mind-map for the categories and related issues
– Ideas for an action to solve the problem/issue (idealistic)
– Reality check how the action could be executed
– Presentation of the action

Result:
The five categories for the ideas have been
– Social: “Problem of unequal access to water”
– Political: “Think long term – Act short term”
– Environmental: Problem “Water pollution”
o Create a “Water summit for citizens”
– Education: “Living Sustainability”
o Develop a “Living School”
o Change through education
o Issues: Practical education/ modern methods/ relation to sustainability

Evaluation:
– Too big groups
– Objective to work together was a joy and productive
– Interesting was the step from “Ideal” to “Practice”. It leads to set the aims high.
– For the method the age of the participants should be considered. The experience showed that smaller children are way more creative than older ones.

Possibility for daily work:
This method could be used for engaging participants for starting new actions. It is a method for the end of a training, because there have to be a common knowledge about the issue. It depends on the age and motivation of the group.

2. Review: “Water consumption during the seminar”

Method:
– During the seminar the cooking team noted all the ingredients of the meals and calculated the used amount of green, blue and grey water. Also the values of used water in the bathrooms and kitchen have been noted. Within a presentation of tables, all the values have been calculated to receive the total used amount of water. This leads to a discussion about the method of the water-foot-print and ways of implement awareness for the water consumption in daily life.

Result:
– The amount of used water in bathrooms, kitchen and for the electricity was 26 m3. The used amount of water in the kitchen was presented through showing the meals with the most water amount and the smallest water amount and the surprising results.

– Discussion:
o The difference between agricultural circumstances e.g. Polyculture was discussed regarding how precise the indicator is.
o The group discussed that there are a lot more aspects which should be considered. The consumer has to think about social circumstances of the producing land, CO2 Footprint and the transport. At least it could be an intuitive decision, but therefore the consumer has to be aware. An conscious consume behavior could be supported with the method of a water-foot-print calculation

Problem:
The discussion faced different opinions about the values. Also the structure of the footprint was not totally clear.

Possibility for daily work:
The method seems to be a perfect repetition for the water-foot-print issue. There has been an input about the water-foot-print before. So the method of showing the used water amount or water-foot-print of the training leads to a direct connection to the issue.

Energizer: Finger-War

The Energizer is divided into 3 parts:

1. Part: Groups of two persons are formed; they are standing in front of each other; they clap their hand three times and then show with the fingers left, right or above;
If both do the same direction they are happy.

2. Part: The two persons of the group put one hand on their back and with the other one they try to touch the hand which is on the back of their partner/enemy.

3. Part: All the participants try to touch the hand on the back of anybody else.

Possibility for daily work:
One of the best energizer the group did in that training. Energizers could be used to activate the participants especially after formal education inputs. They make fun and raise the team spirit.

3. Evaluation of the training

Method:
– An anonym survey; the questionary was prepared by the trainers
Result:
– The survey was for the trainers internal

4. Group Evaluation

Method:
– The participants should be divided into groups of 4 – 5 Persons
– There are some Flipchartpapers which has been prepared with space for positive, negative and improving aspects
– The groups write down positive and negative aspects as well as suggestions for improving the training

5. Networking

Method:
– Everybody introduced him/herself and explained his individual interest;
– the other participants say something if they have further information, contacts or ideas for the person who introduced himself
Result:
– If possible there was an exchange of contact-information, websites and potential partners for projects

6. Final Feedback

Method:
– Every participant get the chance to say some last words in the plenum of all participants
Result:
– The whole group was feeling thankful for the possibility of being part of the training
– The training was described as an intercultural project with a lot of different points of view; it lead to an optimism
– Other words which were mentioned very often has been: Thanks, joy, potential

 

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Friday, 20th of March 2015

How does it work?

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Topics of the day

  • Waterworks Friedrichshagen
  • Water Conflicts and Climate Change
This day had the premises of a mystical day, with a solar eclipse on the spring equinox, but it it started on a rather pragmatic note.
We began the day by watching the eclipse through termofoil, which might not be the ideal filter for looking at the sun, but for us it was fun and energetic. And speaking of energy, some of the residues from the sewerage system, are transformed in bio-gas and phosphorus for agriculture.

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We visited the Waterworks in Friedrichshagen, one of the 9 waterworks in Berlin. It was interesting to have the opportunity of visiting such a facility and we were very happy with the tour.
There are 8000 km of pipes that run water throughout Berlin, all supervised by engineers from a star trek-like command chamber that monitor the pressure fluctuation round-the-clock and manually adjust the water pressure, in accordance to the municipal water demand.
We were surprised to find out water is not chlorinated and, above all, is tested using a sensor that observes the movement of a particular species of fish found in the water tank; one can tell from their movement whether the water has the optimal quality or not.
The water comes from local aquifers and goes through several processes like aeration, oxidation, flocculation, filtering, so it is good to drink before it is pumped into the local grid.
It was rather unsettling to find out that, due to Berliners’ now low household water use, they must pour fresh water into the sewage system, in order to wash the pipes and avoid the bad smell getting out. This happens because the pipe profile is designed for a higher debit than Berlin used to have. Therefore, although Berliners are saving water in their homes, a real save is not made at all from the municipality’s point of view.

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After a delicious Indian lunch, we headed back to Kubiz, where we met our next speaker.

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The topic discussed in the afternoon referred to water conflicts and climate change and was introduced by Christiane Gerstetter from the Ecologic Institute in Berlin. She presented the results of the Clico research project (Climate change, water conflicts and human security: Regional Assessment and policy guidelines for the Mediterranean, Middle East and Sahel).

The project was build on the climate-water-security nexus and set the grounds for debating human security in the context of climate change on the international stage, by analyzing the region of the Mediterranean Sea, the Middle East and Sahel.

The premises of the research are set by the fact climate change is a global issue which impacts, both directly and indirectly, all areas of human security, by enhancing the already existing tensions in different regions of the world and by creating  marginalized communities, which generates conflicts and insecurity. Regional and national instabilities became of global importance with the growing interdependence between nations. As a global issue, climate change needs internationally coordinated efforts to ensure fast responses to weather events and diminish the security risks.

The research concluded that factors related to climate change are particular to the regional and national context of various areas, and this is why governments need strategies for adaptation, as well as a coordinated concrete framework in which they analyze and eliminate the risks.

Furthermore, it offered several recommendations, which include measures both on an international and national level. The state itself is a key actor in the climate-water-security nexus, and it needs to create and support “adaptation measures” which include fostering research and knowledge sharing, improving capacities to make and implement solid social security systems, as well as flexible policy cycles adapted to national and regional needs. It further needs to increase its communication, cooperation and coordination outside its borders and support institutional accountability in an institutional framework competent in conflict resolution related to climate change.

The presentation of the overall study, as well as of two case studies (Ethiopia and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) stimulated reflection on the fact that climate change is a topic sensitive to subjective interpretation and conflicting political goals, which means education and critical thinking are key elements in understanding conflicts related to climate change and water.

Thursday, 19th of March 2015

Energy and Water: Potentials and Risks

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Topics of the Day

  • Energy and Water
  • Opencast Mining in Berlin and Brandenburg
  • Resistance to Opencast Mining

ENERGY AND WATER: POTENTIALS AND RISKS
Energy and Water
In the morning the theme of “Water usage in energy producing technologies” was implied by team participant from Romania. The principles of various energy production technologies were presented and used as an opportunity to get familiar with the different practices implemented. The production technologies can be summed up in Thermoelectric, Hydroelectric, Open-Cast Mining, Fracking.
Thermoelectric principles divided in recirculating cooling and one-through cooling, while Hydroelectric principles consist of Dams and Run-of-the-river.
The procedure of familiarizing with the principles was realized through team games in the form of exercises. The exercises have created and interesting point between the presentation parts.

EXERCISE 1
What percentage of water is evaporated in dams?
What percentage of water gets recovered from fracking?
Without calculating give a relative answer.

Renewable Energy
The forms of renewable energy are altogether Solar, Wind, Hydroelectrical, Tidal, Geothermal, Biomass, Renewable Waste. Statistics were presented to give an idea about the use percentages. Then two group games were implemented two familiarize the participants with renewable energy uses in daily life.

EXERCISE 2
Collective living
Choose a type of building (private or public) with permanent or temporary residents and Imagine methods for using less water while functioning on the same parameters.

Some really interesting ideas occurred, most of them on the same path of sustainability, ecology, educational methods and new technologies implemented. Examples of these were: waterless hygiene facilities, faucet redactor, permeable paving, rope garden, roof garden, use of recycled paper, special informative events.

EXERCISE 3
Banning energy production technologies that use unsustainable quantities of water & start the transition to technologies that use reduced amounts of water. Formulate 4 objectives that answer your goals & can be transformed in a draft bill (1).

In this exercise we didn’t get the point well and focused in a different scale than requested. The idea would be to have a mission (1) and form objectives that would later be followed by actions. We focused more on the actions than the objectives. That helped us in the end discuss the whole procedure of organizing a goal and was more productive in idea-making.

Opencast Mining in Berlin and Brandenburg
Daniella Setton, a political scientist and activist presented the issue. At the beginning the group presented ourselves and a our personal interest in the specific issue. This helped organize the discussion later.
LIGNITE (brown coal)
The lignite (brown coal) is still 25,6% of energy production of Germany, while renewable energy reaches for the first time in 2014 a higher percentage of 25,8%. The Germany is the first lignite production country in the world. At the same time lignite is the dirtiest production with the most CO2 emissions. The 9 biggest lignite power plants og Germany cover 20% of worldwide lignite energy production.
WATER & MINING
Many people, even protected minorities will be forced to relocate due to new power plants being planned in Germany in the following years.
The extensive lowering of groundwater table is one of the main needs of open-cast mining, because the excavation for lignite is very deep. In order for this excavation to be stable, large quantities of water have to be pumped away and 140 lakes (inactive open pits) have to be filled with water.
PROBLEMS
The problems that occur can be summarized:
• Trees dry out
• Soil gets very wet after the stop of excavations and becomes unstable
• Acids & deficits of water (1/2 of lake pits from a number of 5000 has a PH<3)
• Noise
• High Iron and Sulfate concentration
IRON
As the ecosystem is dying slowly, there will be a possibility of having no food and no fish if the iron issues remain unsolved. Also being said that the flow velocity is around 10cm\s, especially on the banks, so it will be carried along again. Spreewald is a UNESCO biosphere that gives more than 7000 jobs from tourism in the area, and measures taken until now were not efficient enough.
SULFATE
Drinking water with high level of sulfate it is a problem of more than 2 million people in Germany. Around 70% of this drinking water comes from the Spree surface, that is where the concentration of sulfate arises. This is one of the actions “Friends of Earth” is carrying out in order to raise awareness on this problem. Still, the legislation for open-mining in Germany comes from the 3rd Reich era.

Resistance to Opencast Mining
The speaker referred to this topic as one of the most successful actions. The protest went on the social media and online petitions, but the collection of signatures was a mandatory step in order to go ahead with the resistance. The motto was “Kein weiteres Dorf abbaggern”
More than 110.000 signatures were gathered, about 70.000 from Greenpeace. The pro-movement was unsuccessful, getting almost half of the signatures only.
The next step will be a demonstration in the 25.04.2015, “Anti-Kohl-Kette”.
After dinner we watched a documentary regarding the life in the ocean, and how the massive fishing is destroying the ecosystem and difficulting the natural process, with some restraints and future problems.
After the movie, we discussed the topic along the remaining participants. It was a intensive day but we really appreciated input!

Wednesday, 18th of March 2015

Consumption and its´ Consequences

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Topics of the day

  • The Journey of a Jeans
  • Consumption and its´ Environmental Impact 
  • Environmental Impacts of Dams and River ModificationsDSC_0607

-water footprint of a jeans
-working in groups- develop educational methods to raise awareness about jeans production and water consumption
-pranz
-River as Ecosystems. River Basin Management
-disparities among social classes (game and reflection)


No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. (John Donne)

The powerful sunshine made the 5th day of the training to start with a very good energy. After a short warm-up, Tania offered us an introduction into the topic of water foorprint of jeans production, by emphasising not only the huge amount of water needed in order to produce a so common pair of jeans, but also about the environmental and social issues that this industry brings in the areas where each of the production phase rezides.

Once being aware of the environmental, social and economical impacts of the jeans production: big consume of resources (water consumption), transportation (CO2 emissions), unfair working conditions (child labor, bad payed), water and soil pollution (use of pesticides, colorants) we discuss about alternatives to reduce the impacts of the jeans production, such as, replacing the jeans with trousers made by cellulose based materials or by choosing to buy jeans made by organic produced cotton and not least to recycle…

The idea of working again in small groups was warmly welcomed, so that we divided into five groups in order to develop and discuss educational methods that we can further use to raise awareness and teach others (children or adults) about water footprint. Take a look at the results and feel free to adapt and use them!

„I am here because I want to change my life and I feel privileged because I have the chance to be here to discuss about global problems” (Iancu)

„We are all sitting on the humanity boat, but we have different tools to go forward.” (Benjamin)

The conclusion of the day was that we are all interconnected and the decisions we make locally have a high impact globally and as we have the privilege to choose, we have the duty to be responsible for our decisions and take action to diminish the disparities between …

Tuesday, 17th of March 2015

Berlin and Water II

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Topics of the day

  • Water and Urban Development
  • Guided tour

Free afternoon

After starting like the day before 😉 we did a short evaluation about the workshop: Our task was to reflect in small groups of 4 people, each, how we felt, what we liked or disliked and what we’d suggest to change or add in order to make it better and than wrote it onto a flip-chart to make it visible for everybody.
If it was (mainly) the opinion of one person, it was simply written down, if several others agreed, it was additionally marked through encircling or underlining…
Altogether it took not longer than about 10 or 15 Minutes – or at least it didn’t “feel” longer. So it was a really nice method to do an evaluation including common exchange and reflection, making sure that everybody was heard and seen – not like the typical exhausting reflection rounds where you’re thoughts are going somewhere else after the 15th person is talking and repeating all the stuff which was already said or – if it’s not a round – just a few rather loud/space taking people talk. So for sure this is my favorite reflection method for larger groups from now on! 🙂

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After this we grabbed our stuff and walked to the “Weißensee” where the story of the leisure park Weißensee was told and filigreed with pictures, showing what happened in that place about 100 years ago.
[A nice way to get into the imagination how it might have been or felt like, regarding the meaning or importance of the lake in that times, abstracting form the own actual perspective.]
We continued to …, visited the “rotes Rathaus”, passed through the “Nicoleiviertel” and took a lot of pictures in front of the river “Spree”. Everywhere seemed to be hidden stories and connections…
More stages were a bridge, a very important former trade route, and a ship look.

I like this way of experiencing stories and connections, where I can connect unmediated impressions with additionally told information and through this make up my own “movie” in my had, which stays there for longer. The only pity was, that the group streaked so long, that not everybody could experience this, and that the cool whether made us freeze after a while. But it seems to be a good method especially for children and youth, effording them to create an own personal access to a certain topic.

Then we visited the “Brewery Königsstadt” in Senefelder Straße. It was interesting to find the answer of the question, why breweries where located on a hill and how they found their place there. Nowadays there are small handcraft-workshops and alternative cultural projects located which are auto-organized through a collective (e.G.) and which fought successful against the gentrificaton of their site.

At the Wasserturm & Windmühlenberg a few streets away more stories were told about the old times and the developments and changes until today. The Water-Tower at Water-Tower-Place in Prenzlauer Berg was the First Pumping-Station in Berlin established to promote a public water-grid in the town. In order to get a constant water-pressure in the town-pipes the tower and the water-storage was needed. Today it’s a park and in the old flats of the waterworks-workers their are normal people living. The water-storage is sometimes used as a cultural place. Old pictures showed that there were windmills located on the hill when they established the water-tower. The water-tower has as well a dark historical side, when it was used a as concentration camp during the German fascism.