The main goal of the project was to transmit to the children the importance of traditional handicrafts in their own and a foreign culture, getting in touch with local artisans and getting to know various techniques, while keeping in mind the sustainability and idea of recycling instead of buying new materials. Moreover, we wanted to transmit the value of living in remote areas (in a time when young people desire to move to cities) and the beauty of transforming raw, available materials into useful things of everyday life. Children should be more conscious of where things come from and how they’re produced. Moreover we wished for a collaboration with a school in a foreign country like Estonia to widen the horizon of the children and gain new knowledge and skills.
We applied for this project, because we could see the importance that children, living in remote areas far from cities, get in touch with the local traditional handicrafts and artisans. On one hand to prevent the knowledge from disappearing and on the other to raise awareness in the young ones of the value of handmade things and the beauty of working with their hands, transforming raw materials and local resources into useful things keeping in mind the benefits for the environment. We felt the need that children are aware of the importance of recycling materials and see a possible future in staying in the countryside in a traditional manual job instead of moving to big cities, like most of the young ones desire. The fact that they simultaneously could get in touch with a useful way of using technology for promoting and displaying projects outcomes was also a positive aspect, in a time in which technology is always present in their daily life. Moreover we liked the idea of an exchange of knowledge and traditions with a similar remote area in a foreign country like Estonia, to show children the benefits of discovering new cultures, their skills and the beauty of sharing knowledge.