The proposal stems from the meeting between IBO Italia and the Social Promotion Association "I Tetragonauti," founded in 2003 and today made up of professionals and volunteers with expertise in educational pedagogy and maritime experience. The main objective of I Tetragonauti is to implement social and educational interventions and projects aimed at minors, minors in distress, those with difficulties, and people with disabilities, identifying the marine environment and sailing boats as the privileged contexts and tools for their work.
The project thus involves a volunteer experience aboard a sailboat.
Why this experience?
A sea journey has strong educational and formative characteristics: sailing allows you to discover different horizons and possibilities, passions and interests. It helps you learn new things and stimulates the discovery of new aspects of yourself. Living in direct contact with the sea offers a privileged opportunity to get to know it, learn to respect it, and discover its rules and beauty. Being surrounded by the sea, day and night, will make you feel a deep connection with nature. The weather elements and the various forms of marine life will be our travel companions.
Being part of a crew, sharing with others the emotions of sailing, the responsibilities, the enjoyable situations, and the difficult ones, allows you to enter a new dimension based on collaboration, camaraderie, and mutual trust.
Community life on the boat is the privileged space for collaborative action, the ideal environment to experiment with relationships involving rules, roles, duties, tasks, and responsibilities.
The journey is undoubtedly the most intense educational moment.
It’s the time to detach from comforts and securities in order to enter a different reality, sometimes challenging, which inevitably forces you to let go of your own restraints, your own resistance, and to engage with others and with differences.
The activities will alternate between moments on board and on land. During the week, there will be cleaning and maintenance work on the beaches, which will be reached by boat. Special attention will be given to the issue of plastic usage and plastic in the sea, participating in the “Back to Life” project in collaboration with the Genoa Aquarium and Livorno of Plastic in the Sea.
Additionally, life on board will be managed communally through rotating kitchen and cleaning shifts. Through the food pyramid and the exchange of typical recipes from participants' countries of origin, there will be discussions on education and intercultural food practices. Thanks to the partnership with the Food Bank of Tuscany, we will also address the theme of food sustainability, policies, and virtuous behaviors to avoid food waste.
Each day will start with a warm-up session: some simple physical exercises to get moving. During the navigation, everyone will be involved as crew members in maneuvers (steering, sails, anchor) and some basic knowledge (boat nomenclature, winds and courses, main knots).
Work sessions will be balanced with free time for swimming, SUP, snorkeling, and walks.
Embarking in Olbia, during the week we will sail to Tavolara/Golfo Aranci, Gulf of Arzachena, Caprera, La Maddalena, Budelli and Razzoli, then return to Olbia. In each location there will be time ashore for trekking, environmental and cultural activities.
No nights in port are planned.
The exact itinerary will be determined based on weather and sea conditions.