The intergenerational educational programme “Heroes by Nature”, implemented by MedINA in Lemnos, has started! On Wednesday 6 November the first meeting with a group of children from Moudros High School took place and the results were exciting!
The students, guided by the local coordinator of the action, Rafael Giannelis, were invited to create a special map of Lemnos, where they depicted how they perceive their place and how they are connected to it. As it turned out, Lemnos through their eyes is its landscapes and its sea, the castle of Myrina, its representative products (in particular they mentioned cheese, wine, ‘petimezi’ and ouzo), as well as their neighbourhood, what they see from their window, stray animals, meadows with sheep and goats.
“Has Lemnos always been like this?
Was there once something in Lemnos that no longer exists?”
Guided by this question, the team then reworked the map, adding what has been irretrievably lost, bringing back memories from their family and community. The children’s responses were compelling! They identified highly significant features that no longer exist and are connected to the environment, culture and local community dynamics: the cotton, wheat, donkeys, mandras, the houses in the castle when it was inhabited, the houses within their village that are now derelict.
The follow-up action will delve even deeper into the causes of losing these precious features. In the next steps, the students will be prepared to interview older people –both from their family environment and from the Elderly Daycare Centre in Kaminia– and record the valuable knowledge of past generations.
The ultimate goal of these actions is for children to draw material from the memories of past generations and, through creative writing workshops that will follow next year, to write adventure and fantasy stories that will unravel important truths, knowledge and perhaps solutions to challenges facing Lemnos.
The programme, among other things, aims to include vulnerable groups, to raise awareness among young people and to bring them in touch with the potential of literature to sensitise them. Children will become familiar with the recording of oral testimonies and acquire the necessary skills to relate it to scientific knowledge, supported by MedINA’s scientific team.
“Heroes by Nature” is an intergenerational educational programme implemented by MedINA with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture.
Cover photo: ©Rafael Giannelis/MedINA