During our activities in the EUKI YESClima project, we the students, teams from both Greece and Spain, have developed a proposal for a center, combining environmental education, innovative energy, gardening and plastic recycling, with the motive that all these functions together will have an ecological and environmental-friendly impact on the surrounding area. Therefore, we came up with the idea of Eco-E.A.R.T.H.=Ecological Educational And Recycling Training Hub
Our program consists of a circular, module, building that is divided in three categories:
– First , the Educational Building that consists of an auditorium, a library and a couple of conference rooms.
– Secondly, we propose a PlasticRecycling Unit, a collecting point of plastic products which then are recycled, in situ, in order to create new recycled items, ready to use.
Finally, we propose a third building which will house an open space meeting room and will be suitable for activities and workshops.
The whole complex of buildings will be surrounded by a zone of green space, that can function as a gardening spot and a natural habitat for biodiversity. In the center we place a kid’s playground since they will be our main target group and the people we are more interested in informing about environmental issues.
One of the main goal of this project is also to create a nearly Zero Energy Building. In order to do that we have implemented a number of systems and methods that can contribute to the energy audits of the building. The systems we propose are:
– Smart Roofs : A combination of green roofs with solar or photovoltaic panels in order to insulate the building and produce energy, at the same time.
– Green facades:can provide adequate shading to the exterior of the building, using deciduous plants and create a more friendly and natural environment for the children
– Use of local, natural materials (for example straw, clay and wood) in the construction of the building: This way we lower the construction costs, we support the local economy and we produce a healthier, friendlier environment for the user.
– Surrounding Gardens: plantations and vegetation with local plants will help at preserving the local fora of the region by creating a green oasis around the buildings and at the same time it is an effcient way to fght against the growing climate crisis.
– Rainwater management : in combination with the green roofs we can harvest the rainwater and then reuse it to irrigate them as well as to use it as toilet water.
We will start with the design of Eco.E.A.R.T.H centers in the two regions in Greece and in Spain, where we are living.
Our central target is to spread more environmentally conscious practices, for every day activities, individually, as well as, to inform (mostly young) people but we also aim at a more holistic approach of the environment action, which includes creating spaces and buildings and eventually whole cities that have a minimum energy impact on our endangered planet EARTH.
YesClima team: D. Beleri , A. Strati, L. Thermos ( Greek team )
D.Rodríguez Benítez, I.Castañeda Lorenzo, P. García Rodríguez ( Spanish team )
The hostel is located in the heart of Athens, not very central but still just a few minutes by walking from all the sights and close to big parks and picturesque hills, offering a view all over the city. I enjoyed staying in this neighbourhood especially, because people from any background meet there: homeless, travelers, refugees, squad people, hippies, locals, students, etc. and everyone is treating each other in a kind way. People here have a strong left-wing political attitude, which is expressed in beautiful graffities, the street life is vibrant, you can have interesting conversations on every corner surrounded by alternative, cozy and cheap restaurants, cafés and bars. 
The Welcommon hostel offers their space and commitment in order to support everyone in developing and pursuing their own needs, ideas, skills and resources in an empowering way. By following those principles, we firstly exchanged language skills, especially in German, English and French, but also we volunteers learned some Farsi, Arabic or Turkish. During my time in Athens, the project only started and began to grow very quickly. Each week more people were arriving and after a few weeks it was possible to establish a regular schedule, with language exchange during the day and a variety of offers in the evenings like, Karaoke, cultural nights, movie nights, theater and kickboxing. 
offered arts and crafts lessons for families and their children by emphasizing on individual creativity, environment empowerment and self awareness. 
The refugee situation
Since I had starting volunteering, I totally experienced the Welcommon days vision, which is to bring people together from all over the world, to enable them to communicate, by contributing with own ideas and experience with the highlight of making bridges between communities, social groups, newcomers and local people.
A precise schedule was developed by the previous volunteers at the beginning of this year. The main activities that we offered are the language skills exchange in English, French and German. On the other hand, we also learned some languages as Turkish, Arabic or Farsi thanks to the refugees. That’s why, we called it “skills exchange”: it is a bilateral way to share and learn about language, culture and many other topics important for people. This is really empowering for all of us. The Welcommon hostel offers their space to support everyone in developing and pursuing their own needs, ideas, skills and resources. 
On Sundays, we planned free outside activities like a carnival Party, a photography tour in the city, a walk and a picnic in the National Gardens, visiting the Panathinaikon/Olympic Stadium, visiting a sea turtle rescue center and cleaning up the beach near Glyfada. Everyone is free to join and we all became friends easily.
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