9 MCAF circles take part this year at Med’Action
This new edition of Med’Action, held from 17 to 23 October, has 8 circles of the Mediterranean Citizens’ Assembly Foundation participating. An average of 8 to 12 circles have participated in each edition. This year’s circles are from Catania, Cyprus, Larache, Oran, Alexandria, Cairo, Thessaly and Le Kef.
At the Plogging Challenge, Catania’s circle will have around 120 participants. They are all part of a network of schools, associations, universities and communities that host UASC, in Italy and abroad, and are concerned about intercultural education. The circle leader will be Melita Cristaldi and they will clean Boschetto’ beach.
As for Larache, the circle has organised a detailed programme. With activities such as: an exhibition on migratory birds that characterise the wetlands of the Lokus river basin, an orientation visit on the ecological qualities of the same river, an environmental field study for children, among many other competitions and activities.
Moreover, at Cyprus’ team will take part 8 members led by Orestis Tringides. They have chosen a beach located in front of the southern fece of the airport of Larnaca because of its environmental importance: it is close to the salt lake area and the rocks tend to accumulate a lot of rubbish. Cairo and Alexandria circles have few confirmed participants at the moment, so they have decided to carry out the action together.
The Med’Action Festival is holding a new and very special edition this year. It continues with its famous Plogging Challenge, a challenge that consists of running or walking along the beaches of the Mediterranean, while collecting the rubbish on them. In 2020, they collected 8394kg of waste and ran over 1941km. This year’s goal is to double those numbers, as well as trying to be over the 8,000 participants who took part in the previous edition.
There are also international debates, online conferences and Med Talk in which young mediterranean people will take part. They will also talk about issues such as the environment, interculturality and equal opportunities. Finally, this year art will be part of the festival with art workshops in the framework of the Mediterranean awareness campaign Art for Clim’Act.
Many events were cancelled because of the pandemic these past two-three years, either because of lockdown or because of health restrictions imposed by each country governments. However, Med’Action was an exception. Regular participants, especially young people, wanted the event to take place and came to the conclusion that the only way to make it happen was online. Therefore, that year’s edition turned out to be a virtual festival. This initiative worked so well that they decided to continue with this idea for the following editions, but hybrid: with online and offline activities at the same time.
