Three years of MARE

MARE Project is celebrating its third birthday. I love to see the child grow up, as activities develop and become regular and diverse. In Ieranto, every summer more people seem interested by guided visits and information about marine life and protection. The idea of a little “giornalino” has become a regularly published poster, distributed in the whole peninsula. The facebook page we tried to manage without a stable internet connection has grown into a professional looking blog with many articles. The environmental education activities, introduced last year, seem to be a concept everybody appreciates. Every year, new ideas appear, and the Project is going in a good direction, preserving its beautiful personality made of improvisation and spontaneity.

                                                                                   MARElini 2013

For me, it’s the third year I’ve been visiting the MARE child and family. I remember how it taught me many things and let me grow up a bit more when were living together two years ago. It is always a great pleasure to involve myself again in the activities I used to do, to get to know the “new” MARElinis, meeting inspiring and motivated young people from all over the world (not only Europe!), to celebrate the reunion of many friends that form my Italian family. E vabbuó, yá… Hearing and making fun of pronouncing typical Napoletan sounds, and slowly slowly the Italian language is coming back to my mind. I enjoy the time in Ieranto, either on kayak informing the incoming boats about the park, or speaking to visitors during guided visits, trying to support the volunteers and staff in their daily work.

                                                                                MARElini 2014

But mainly, I try to understand who are these eight people that decided to commit themselves to an adventure made of wildness, sun, mountains and sea. They seem a very good team to me, with a lot of potential. I kind of find among them some of the legendary MARE spirit, made of international thinking, living together, exchanging ideas and ways of living that generates a unique cultural richness.

Every year, every single person is bringing so much knowledge, experiences, points of view to the project…a diversity that ends up to seem normal because it is there every day. This diversity means a giant opportunity for initiatives and enriching transformations, ideas and projects, new ways of working and sharing common values on a daily basis…together with a project that in his specific meaning leaves a huge space for creativity, it’s a unique opportunity everybody should seize. To help the MARE child grow up into a life-satisfied adult.

                                                                                       MARElini 2015

Steph