Young people from Germany and the Czech Republic met in Hamburg to complete the joint project

We were glad to be invited to the final event of the three-year environmental project “Youth-4-Elbe” in Hamburg. The participants came from seven schools from Germany and the Czech Republic. In total, we were 42 students. We stayed in an international youth hostel close to the river Elbe.After the check-in, we enjoyed a foggy and fresh. We were guided by Mister Barandat, a member of the Federal Foreign Office. In the evening, every student introduced himself and his school in a short presentation.

On the boat trip around the Hamburg Harbor

On the sightseeing tour

The next day we did a rally in the city center of Hamburg for getting a better overview. During this activity, we discovered lovely details on our own.The lunch took place in the cafeteria of the Marine Office. After that,we took the subway to an information pavilion on environmental protection of Hamburg. Back in the youth hostel, we worked on certain topics in different groups. One highlight of the day was rehearsing the self made “Elbesong”. On this day, Miss Eikermann of ALCOA-Foundation – the major supporter of our project – accompanied us.

One of the self-made boats

Miss Eikermann gets the first exemplar of our calender

On Tuesday morning, we toured a ship called Rickmer Rickmers that is opened to the public. A presentation of important, environmentally committed people followed (Prof. Dr. Töpfer, Mr. von Rudloff, Mr. Lange and Mr. Baake). After the presentation, we launched our self-made “nature boats” on the Elbe river. Each participating school. On its sails, we wrote our wishes and hopes for the future of the Youth-4-Elbe project. Later, one of the long-time sponsors of the Living Elbe project, Unilever, offered us lunch in their cafeteria. In the afternoon, we had some spare time in the city of Hamburg and visited several places. Some students went to the DOM, a great amusement park. In the evening, we had a final meeting where the whole project was evaluated.

Student discussing with Dr. Klaus Töpfer	Students discussing environmental protection
Launching our self-made boats	The participants

Great thanks to all participants and organizers. We hope that there will be more projects like that, because we acquired such a great amount of new knowledge, responsibility for our environment and new friendships, to name just a few things we took from the project.

(written  by  students from  Agricola- Gymnasiums Chemnitz;  Gesamtschule  Kleinmachnow und  Gymnasiums „Jan Palacha“ Praha)