Virtual mobilities proposed by Diakonie Bremen in Uniamoci Onlus

 A total of 6 virtual mobilities proposed by the German Partner Diakonie Bremen involved adults disabled people, disadvantaged people, educators and volunteers from all the partner’s organizations.

Six different activities connected with the field of collaborative economy or to be entered on this market.

To be noted that the implementation of these activities was in the period where the emergency caused by the coronavirus was growing, so that all the involved organizations had to follow the specific safety rules dictated from the situation.

This is the reason why some activities started in the month of March were stopped to be continued after and some other activities were initially implemented with the participants only virtually and later developed.

Looking on the bright side, to implement the activity in a virtual way when it was impossible to do that with physical presence has been a good opportunity to be close to the participants engaging them in the activities in that hard period.

The first virtual mobility, the “creation of plant-pot” through the recycling of glass and tin jars, was very participated and appreciated. Till now we realized 30 pieces of colorful plant-pots, decorated with wool and felt.

We decided to plant succulent plants because of their good strength.

Thanks to the second virtual mobilities, “Exchange Corners”, now we have in Uniamoci Onlus a dedicated corner where the participants can offer their objects to the people attending the Association and they can take something that they like or something they need from the exchange corner. From this new space, opened and free, we can notice how some participants are happy to bring and offer their objects and also to look at the others while they are deciding to take some of these objects for themselves. For somebody the possibility to take some objects from the corner without necessarily leaving something in exchange was incredible and exciting. At the same time to see the evolution and the changes in the corner is interesting and stimulates the curiosity of everybody.

When the German partner proposed the third virtual mobility was the period of quarantine, this is why we implemented this activity with the participants of Uniamoci Onlus in a virtual way. The activity consisted in the exchange of cooking recipes and/or cooking books between participants, the local community and involved organizations. The participants were free to choose how to propose their favorite recipes: a participant used a video to share how to prepare the Italian fresh pasta, an other decided to share pictures of her personal handwritten recipe book with small drawings to share the recipe for pizza, an other participant created a kind of tutorial with photos for all the steps to follow to prepare a chocolate and hazelnut porridge and else somebody decided to share his favorite food with digital drawings. The possibility for the participants to freely choose the method to share their recipe shows how every person chooses a personal way to communicate. The situation of quarantine stimulated them to use and develop digital skills for the virtual exchange of recipes and at the same time to continue to be active in the activity of the project also during that period.   

The fourth virtual mobility proposed allowed the participants to decorate and redesign unused clothes and textiles, by the use of fabric colors, needlework, stamps realized with corks and other recycled material, buttons and beads. The results were very good! The participants gave new life to clothes considered out of style and boring and was visible their satisfaction on the works realized. This activity was for the participants also an opportunity to develop their creative skills, to learn new techniques and to promote the attitude of reuse and recycling. 

The fifth virtual mobility was about the technique of frottage: frottage with leaves was used to decorate greeting cards and glass jars that became candle holders. The first step was to decorate the paper with frottage using leaves and wax colors. Then we used water colors on the decorated papers and finally we applied these decorated papers on colored cardboards to create the greeting cards and on the glass jars to create the candle holders. A simple activity with colorful and satisfying results.

We started with the virtual mobilities in March, but with the arrival of Covid-19 and the need to reorganize the way of working of the organizations, we are now in the middle of November, so the last virtual mobility is about the creation of Christmas tree decorations using corks: they can be painted to be mushrooms, snowmen and reindeer; just add an hook and a tie to use them to decorate your Christmas tree. The participants developed creativity and know how and benefited from the peaceful Christmas atmosphere!