We arrive at schools

I am not very easy going, especially with children. My horrifying experience has been either me holding a crying baby who, in fact, before probably had a great day but now in my hands has the worst day of his life. Or children saying „No, no. I will play with anyone just not with Elza.” And I cannot blame them since most of the time children remind me aliens or if I see a child I slowly walk away. So normally, understanding that November is going to be the month of going to schools to hold presentations for the children I felt paralyzed.

„But Mimi! I am not the children type! You know that I am not fun! You want that me and Radek are in the same team? Two of the most boring and calm people? Yes, sure. We can do games of silence. For example, what kinds of sounds make a jellyfish? And do it for 20 minutes!”

However, what starts as a horror ends into me finally opening my eyes and seeing what this is all about. The only way how we can save this god damn world is if we surround children with people who care and respect the environment and choose environmentally friendly options. Maybe their families will not agree but it is important that the children do. That they are educated and have an opened mind and a possibility to choose. In fact, during one presentation I recall my childhood with my mom who always said to me to never throw garbage on the ground because it hurts the nature. And as a child I would feel no shame or I would never see something wrong with being a „environmentalist” or „vegan” or whatever. For this reason it finally clicked me. Why we are doing this. Why it is important. And that it is not just 40 minutes of presentation and then 40 minutes of some games. These children really wait for the classes and I do not know if we are just very entertaining or all of the children in Italy are like this, but they are extremely well educated, motivated and interested in learning more.

So far we have held classes about the park, about rock, about sandy bottom, rocky bottom, water column and fishing. In the first class we talked about the park. About all of the zones and the restrictions. Then we did presentations about rocky bottom and all the algae and animals that live on them and inside of them, like Datteri, that often are being illegally fished. Because they live inside of the rocks fisherman cut the rocks and destroy the rich bio construction, or simply saying, they kill animals that live on the rocks, just to get Datteri that bring a lot of money.

We also did presentations about sandy bottom – about sea grass Posidonia and its importance since it is the source of oxygen and also a place for many fishes to hide, lay eggs and to feed, and with anchoring it is being destroyed in a few seconds. Also we talked about the water column. Nektons – animals that can swim and those who are moved by the currents – planktons.

Maybe this is very naive but I think that in the end of the day, most of the people do not do the harm intentionally, but because they have a lack of knowledge and this is something that we have a chance to change.