Students:Luisa Borges

My name is Luisa, Portuguese, 49 years old, female, married and I have a daughter with 26 years old. I'm studying at the Open University of Lisbon, doing my Master in Environmental citizenship and Participation. My degree is in Social Sciences with minor n Political Sciences and Administration. I live currently in Abu Dhabi that is the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

I'm very enthusiastic about the spring School because of the amount of different nationalities involved and because I will be able to know more about sustainable development in European Union and the different projects in the region.

My hobbies are reading, yoga, walking, socialize with friends, cultural events, music and dancing.

About one initiative or project in my town that I like and contributes for the sustainable development in my area I would like to mention:

the "Refood" available at http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/2013/10/03/refood-ending-food-waste-by-creating-strong-collaborative-communities/

I think this is a very important initiative because due to the crisis in Portugal many people is unemployed and going through very difficult situations. This project collects excess of food from restaurants and distributes the food for those who cannot buy food and are undergoing through very difficult situations.

FINAL ASSIGNMENT

Trying to recall the theme that interested me the most in the above mentioned seminar is not a easy task because there was many interesting subjects, presentations and group work done during this week. IT was really a very interesting week for me that contributed to change my awareness of the importance of the importance of a sustainable way of life that includes ethical, social, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours. It raised a lot of questions that really helped me to look at life events and reality in a different way. Do I need so many material things in my life? Can I have a more simple life? If cooperation is the right answer to problems why we cannot cooperate with each other? Why it is so difficult to work in groups? Can I let go of my strong will of doing things my own way etc.

Although all these questions and experiences were very important for me during this week, there was a presentation that meat a lot to me because it is connected with the work I will probably be involved in UN in my internship. That is the presentation of Leena Karrasch with the title of “climate adaptation”. Climate change is a reality and has been studied by scientists that try to find the causes in different factors but most important one the emission of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere that provoke a global warming that leads to changes in the weather and in climate.

Leena´s presentation was very interesting because it described the experiences of the tools used by the CPA project team. It was really interesting to see the effects of the flooding in the specific places and its consequences for the inhabitants like displacement of population, of business etc. It was really interesting to see how this project is about adapting to a new reality and which measures or tools are being used in order to achieve that goal. Using excess of water to have new lakes, where leisure activities can be practiced, and other interesting decisions to adapt to a new reality was really interesting.

Also how the project tried to involve the community raising awareness between community members was very interesting. I would be very interested to know more about this project and would like to visit it myself one day to see how the project is going, which procedures were done, which are the most critical parts.