Where we will stay

We will stay in a place called  "Old school of Kolka". Since 1992, each summer this complex houses several summer courses for University of Latvia. In summer this place rarely is empty as for most time here are studnets either from faculty of biology or geography or some other faculties taking summer courses in life sciences and ecology. 

This is how buildings look from outside:

And a brief sight inside...

Originally this house was built for baron of Osten-Sacken family in 1856/57. In year 1919 bolsheviks arrested the last owner of the house and shoot him shortly afterwards. Ten years passed without anyone currently knowing what exactly happened in here, but since 1929 there were located elementary school of Kolka at least till 1961. University got hold of building in 1991, but only in 2001 university were granted the permission to start some renovations there.

Before participants arrive we will cunduct some major cleaning and prepare rooms either for living and working as well as we'll remove some "stuff" thats collected there...

the map

For visual expectations.

As you come here, most likely you won't see sights like those...

 

But there is realy high probability that something from photos below would seem similar... As those pictures mostly are from That place!

 

Black Stork Kingdom

Pictures by Davis Drazdovskis (yes, you will meet him)

On the weekend from 9th to 10th of July we - three of us and Maris Strazds, ornitologist and the leading black stork expert in Latvia- went out on a trip. A very special one. The main goal was to check on couple of black stork nests and ring this year's new black storks, as well as to capture this process in photos and video in order to make an example video for the youth exchange.

You will hear more about this once the video is done (soon and very soon), but in short - we checked on 8 nests, out of which three had the new black storks in them. We ringed six birds (two of them jumped out of the nest, and we had to go and find where have they landed), and that was the last black stork ringing trip this year - now the birds are too big, and trying to catch them can turn out a bit of a dangerous business.

Why am I telling you all this? Because this is the sort of thing we will be doing in Kolka. Maybe not exactly 2 day trips, but still - out in the wilderness, trying to find the most interesting, exciting and beautiful parts of nature, and then capturing all that in photos and videos.

It would be hard to do this without them

So. Project preparation is full on - we are making tens of phonecalls, sending hundred of emails, editting pictures and making videos, and the sooner everything comes, the more excited we get. It is going to be pretty awesome.

There are couple of friends of ours we want to mention from the very beginning. Because we couldn't have done this without their support. Check them out, take a look on what they are doing, and - hey! - maybe that can be a beginning of a brand new project?


EU non-formal education program "YOUTH ON ACTION". This is as old as the earth, but it still keeps on turning and helping hundreds and hundreds of young people all across the Europe to discover new territories (literally AND metaphorically speaking).

"Latvia's State Forests" and their project "Mammadaba" - they gladly agreed to support one lecture by an experienced nature photographer Andris Eglitis, who will be coming to our youth exchange to share his knowledge and experiences.

"Greenmood" has been an old friend of "homo ecos:", supporting countless activities and projects, and this project is not an exception

PROJECT STARTED

Youth exchange project
“SPEAK FOR NATURE”

In order to tell a story, you have to know WHAT to tell, and HOW to tell it. With project “SPEAK FOR NATURE” we want to give opportunity to learn, experience and practice how to communicate different nature-related topics and stories through various media (photography, video, design etc.).
During the project, we will focus on 3 areas – nature sciences, public relations and audiovisual media, combining different elements from these areas to create stories about nature.

The aim is, in 10 days, to work together on different nature related topics, and prepare a “product” (a campaign -   movie, a series of photographies etc.) with holistic message that will be distributed in different media afterwards.

The project will be carried out with non-formal education methods, using “learning by doing”, “learning from each other” and active participation as key principles.