In mid-September Marina Karamani, Victoria Polydorou and Boghos Avetikian had to opportunity to take part in a training course in a lovely village named Fanano, in Italy, organized by the Italian NGO L’ORMA.

Titled “Open Your EU Outdoor”, with Polish trainers Igor and Paulina, the training course focused on ways sports, namely forms of hiking and ropes could be used in order to teach audiences of any age. In fact, the age-range of participants was pretty vast, from as young as 18 to as old as 55. Participating countries included Poland, Italy, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania as well as Austria.

After the usual icebreaking, bonding and learning the basic theory of the idea, it was surprising just how much of it was put into practice. A hiking was set up for one of the later days, and we were split into groups, ones for preparation, food, navigation and entertainment, and it was interesting how effectively the groups worked together and the hike, while tiring, ended up very successful with a nice meal towards the end.

A second fascinating thing, and completely new, at least for the Cypriot team, were “Low Ropes”.

These were a set of obstacles, set up with somewhat stretchy metallic ropes between trees to walk on. One included normal ropes to hang from, and another a mesh of ropes we weren’t allowed to touch. After experimenting with them with small groups, participants were tasks with trying to go through the whole thing in one go, as a huge group, as pictured bellow. What was interesting about this activity is that due to age, some participants were unable to make it through fully, yet we modified roping, without touching the ground, and eventually everyone did make it through!

L'Orma’s “OPEN YOUR EU OUTDOOR” turned out to be a very fulfilling experience, and Boghos intends to implement it in future Erasmus+ projects he intends to facilitate, as soon he manages to learn its licensing requirements and finds the equipment!