The ‘Green Europe in the Neighbourhoods’ activity raises young people’s awareness on the big climate challenges

Some 390 students from year one compulsory secondary from the Duc de Montblanc, La Serreta and L’Estatut schools met on Friday at the amphitheatre in Castell Park, to close the Green Europe in the Neighbourhoods activity, framed within the Youth/Green ImPACT Project. This initiative by the Rubí City Council has been done within the European Commission’s Erasmus + Structured Dialogues programme and developed with support from the Spanish National Youth Institute (INJUVE).  

Green Europe in the Neighbourhoods is an awareness-raising activity that uses the fine and performing arts to ensure that young people know the objectives of the European Green Deal. Last week, close to 400 participating students created – under the coordination of the edRa Art and Design School – some 20 murals related to climate change from recycled materials they had collected over the previous months.

The activity concluded on Friday in the amphitheatre in Castell Park, with a show featuring local dance schools, which symbolically represented the main climate challenges we are facing as a society. After an initial joint choreography with live accompaniment from the Pere Burés Municipal Dance School, The Community Dance Centre performed Noizu, a choreography on noise pollution and the effects it has on our planet; Dinàmic Crescendo performed Arrels (Roots), inspired by deforestation; and the Vuit Temps Dance and Theatre School, Petrolium, a dance about the contamination of the seas. The murals the young people created in previous days were the backdrop for the event.

The meeting was presided over by Rubí Mayor Ana María Martínez Martínez, and also attended by the councilman for City Promotion and Cultural Promotion and Invigoration, Moisés Rodríguez Cantón; the councilman for Children and Education, Víctor García Correas; the councilwoman for Youth, Annabel Cuesta Fabre; and the councilman for the Environment, Ecological Transition and Animal Welfare, Andrés Medrano Muñoz; as well as a representative from the European Commission office in Barcelona.

In the welcoming address, the mayor thanked everyone involved for their contribution to the Youth/Green ImPACT Project, especially the boys and girls involved: "When we committed to this project, we did it with hope and expectation, convinced that – if we really want a greener future – it is essential to open up this dialogue between the young and the administration. As we progress with the activities, your incredible response, your interest… fill us with certainty that we are on the right path." Martínez also stressed the importance that art holds when placed at the service of such relevant initiatives, in this case fine arts and dance, such as this: "Art is a powerful tool of expression […] This is a vision that motivates us as a city and that we have tried to project in the last year via the COLOR initiative. We want art to explode into our lives, transforming and embellishing the physical spaces, while in turn helping us to improve our society."

The Youth/Green ImPACT project consists of five activities that will be implemented this year and will be centred on different youth groups. All of them focus on applying the European Green Deal in this region, by promoting dialogue between young people and institutions. In January and February, the two sessions of the first activity were held virtually. 13- and 14-year-old boys and girls from the Adolescent Council and Rubí schools could exchange concerns and impressions on the European Green Deal with municipal politicians and European Parliament members. The event this Friday is the second project activity.