The Região de Turismo do Algarve (RTA) will promote from the month of May a collection of activities to raise environmental and civic awareness as part of the campaign "Algarve with more pleasure", promoted in partnership with the Plano Regional de Turismo do Algarve (PRTA). The project, which will run until the end of 2006, comprises an itinerant exhibition, competitions, games and outdoors activities, having as its objective the improvement of the quality of life

and protection of the environment in the Algarve, encompassing themes related with tourism, the beaches, hospitality and service.

Thus, more than 1200 students from thirty schools of the 1st cycle will accept the challenge of constructing with imagination, until 8th May, children's play objects with recourse to recycling, within the scope of the project "Ganda Lata" (Big Can), a regional competition of toys created from the re-utilisation of waste materials.

The toys created will afterwards be evaluated by a jury and will be on exhibition in a public location, where the students can connect with the works of colleagues from other schools. The three first places classified will be distinguished with prizes, and all competitors will receive a certificate of participation.

In addition to "Ganda Lata", there will also be a project "Games of the Environment and of Civism of the Algarve", scheduled for 30th May, in the Municipal Stadium of Quarteira. These are other means of pedagogic intervention for the scholastic community.

In this latter project there will be in competition teams comprising students of the 2nd and 3rd cycles of Basic Learning from the twelve municipalities which have adhered to the initiative.

With a dozen different themes, one for each municipality, the games aim to stimulate the young people to adopt behaviours which do not harm the environment and promote, simultaneously, the interaction between students.

Each participating school will create and produce games activities, including scenery and adornments, under the theme to which they are associated. The thematic is variable: planting of trees, clearing of animal waste, hospitality for tourists and preservation of forests, amongst many others.

In a 10 minute trial, the students transpose the ideas thought up by their adversaries which they conceive. At the end, prizes will be awared to the three first schools who will be featured on the podium and an honourable mention to the municipality with the best game.

The actions to raise awareness for the reduction of pollution will also make available fifty signs on the principal entrances of the Algarve. The first supports were installed on 13th April in the towns of Albufeira, Faro and Loulé.

The action will also be extended to the beaches, in a total of 55 informative panels with message which alert the public to the time it takes for nature to absorb a cigarette end, or a plastic bag, for example.

It should also be mentioned that the itinerant exhibition "Algarve with more pleasure" will be open between 3rd and 12th May in the Municipal Museum of Faro. It aims to alert people to the harmful effects of pollution on the planet. It will then move to São Brás de Alportel, where it can be visited in the Municipal Library from 16th to 19th May.

Composed by panels alluding to the environmental and civic themes, the exhibition includes the screening of a video to raise awareness aimed, principally, at the pupils of the 1st and 2nd cycles of Basic Learning. The show has already been to various municipalities in the Algarve and has been vixited by hundreds of students.

source: região sul