The goal of our project

Since yesterday we're discussing ways of gathering information, our good sides etc. but what about the goal of our project? What do we want to achieve by realising our future idea? In my opinion this is one of the most important decision to be made.
I think Henko already started this discussion by proposing to link our project with what Young Explorers from the Magnetic North Pole Expedition did. Here I'm copying his e-mail:

to Saskia:
Hi Saskia!!
I trust you had time to rest & recover from the xpedition? OK now the serious work start for me & group for presenting a Project.
I want to know from you what project idea was chosen at the MNP camp &what did it focus on & what did you guys do about it while on expedition? Because we are going not too far from your xpedition, i thought we can maybe "link" the 2?
On your trip - What did you experience about:
* tourism possibilties
* adventure tourism
* how busy is the "harbours" or are all ships out of the area at the moment because of winter?
* how does the kids entertain themselves
* how busy is the aeroplanes? effect?
* anything mentioned to you guys about problems that the locals are worried about?

Do you know much about the other projects started during previous expeditions? I know of Borneo - India school, Kamchatka - dogsleigh? what happened in other areas?
Do you think the project should be completely new business or can it be the support of an existing business ( I think i have a great idea to support)
thanks for your patience & help!

cheers
Henko

From Saskia:
Hi Henko,

right, I had some time to recover but now the stress for school beginns,
I have a lot of work to do -.-

Do you guys from the selction camp already have to present an idea in
Switzerland?! We didn't have to do that... Seems to be new ;-)

But we came up with an idea while we spent some days in Resolute: We
want to establish a new Pangaea Act Project in resolute which includes
projects with the kids in school, recycling, a green house and community
clean ups.

tourism possibilities:
There aren't many tourists in the very north of Canda because the
flights are really expenisive. Our flight from Ottawa to Resolute was
4500 Doller per person. The only "tourists" are people who go on an
expedition like us or sportshunters.

adventure tourism:
sportshunting and expeditions

harbours:
As we were there the ocean was still frozen but it will melt in the next
couple of weeks. The harbour of Resolute is not very busy, there is a
cargo ship twice in the summer to bring the needed goods. I don't think
that there come many other ships to Resolute. But I guess in more
southern territories the ship transport is more busy.

kids entertainment:
EVERYBODY has an ipod, they meet up in community buildings to listen to
music, go on the internet or chat to each other. The smallerones are
often outside with their bikes. Moreover there's a gym in Resolute where
they play sports games like basketball or soccer.
In summer the most of the families go on summer camp, means that they go
to an other island for hunting a few weeks. That's what most children
really look forward to. But in general there's not a lot to do for them.
I guess that's the reason why they were so intersed in our stories and
passionated about everything we told them.

airplanes:
In Resolute there is one flight almost every day to fly people up or
down, to bring food or post.

problems locals are worried about:
Ice melts much earlier than few years ago. It's too warm for this time
of the year. Birds are seen that normally don't come that fra north.
Polar bears go more north than they used to do.
Not a lot of chances for young people, no jobs, they feel excluded from
the rest of the world.

Yes, I know about those three projects. Check out the website, there's a
discription of all the other projects!

I think it would be cool to link two projects. We've thought about
sending up two YE's every year to teach the children in school, plan
outdoor activities with them, work on the recycling project for aluminum
coke tins, bulid up a greenhouse and grow our own vegetables and and
and It's still an idea but maybe we can make it come true!

Good luck with your preperations and if you have any other question
don't hesitate to ask me! I'll always help you whereever I can!

Unfortunatly I can't come to your camp (I'm in NY for visiting my
sister) - I would really have LOVED to go there, to meet all of you! I'd
like to get to know you in reality! But maybe there will soon come any
other opportunity, maybe I'll come to South Africa anytime ;-)

Cheers,
Saskia

This morning i mailed Saskia to ask if Mike H mentioned to MNP explorers where exactly the Northern Territories expedition will go to - i think this will make our decision / research easier to do as we can then focus on problems in a specific area where we can make contact with locals now already.


Maybe its best to 1st know what all of our groups interests are & then try to combine these in our project. I mean we will be more passionate about something we are all interested in?

Zula -dogs, books, gardening + ?
Rici - cultures/ people, traditions, sport, lifestyle, tourism + ?
Phoebe - recycle , people, educating kids, dance, health + ?
Henko - sport, fishing, action, maritime (shipping), safety, people, crafts

All big Pangaea projects focus focus mostly on Water , sanitation, eco-tourism, restoration (coral/ trees), education. (thinking about Borneo / india school/ kamchatka sleighdogs tours)

If we consider the above - we need to involve Pangaea main sponsors , our interests, local youth to carry on with project & ideas how YEPs can go back there to join project throughout the year?


I will post some NT problems areas under the research topic to help with deciding on topic

I like Zula's idea of getting into contact with a local school - i think we should do this & then invite them to register on the YEP website as well.

looking forward to your feedback! Henko

the feedback i got from the MNP yeps are that the NT expedition will be to around Baffin Island.
So maybe we should concentrate our research & project idea around this region? Same for contacting school/ government/ nature reserves.
Or do you guys want to research the whole NT area & cover all aspects?

I think we should have the general knowledge on the whole region but in our project - focus on Baffin Island. The variety of life is unmeasurable and in my opinion we should concentrate on what we can discover ourselves during the Expedition.

Rici: It is a good idea to work with kids and to organise something like camps, day of play, clean ups for kids...But we shouldn´t forget the parents, when there is a good relationship to the children, we could organise a parent's day, so we can get in contact with them, too. The Inuits have problems with alcoholism, so it is important to help the adults/parents too. We shouldn´t ignore them in our project.

"Our projects are to get Resolute a more sustainable place. A green village if possible. Recycling, Greenhouses, swage treatment, windpower ect.."

We asked him about linking the projects but he didn’t sound that interested about that, so prob not.

Well there are only few Aeroplanes and ships in the area, as far as I know. As soon as The NW passage opens there will be lots of shipping / problems. You might want to focus on that?

In Resolute kids were completely bored. There’s nothing to do in a 250 pers settlement. They really enjoyed spending time with us.

There are always YEP projects started.. but most of them were too big and don’t get established fully because of lack of money. But nearly always something happens.

Himalaya did a project with the sewage and the garbage in the base camp.
Malaysia did some project with the reefs similar to Borneo.
About the rest I’m not completely sure what happened. :-S

If possible it’s better if you can start a completely new business. But cooperation’s are also possible. But these things are very far away.. "

I understood, that the goal of our project, is a project for kids. So we want to integrate them and then to contact their parents, too. That we have a relationship to both generations...is it right?!

If we want to work with kids, we should inform us about the behaviour of the family and the parents...For example the Aborigines in Australia don´t let their kids go to peole they don´t know or even let them go to an organisation for e.g. integration... They are very sceptic because of the "Stolen Generation". So we should handle careful with their traditions and fashions.

First of all, I also contacted someone who had already participated in an Expedition and asked about their Act Core Project. Here's what Tiziana wrote:

"The project in Pakistan was waste management. The problem is the pollution of the glacier, both materials like plastic and other rubbish, as well as human waste. many thousend people visit the glacier every year, and every expedition has many porters (our expedition had 19 members and 148 porters), so all us need to go the toilet, and that's a problem on a glacier, for it is moving, bringing the waste down and the ice is melting, and all the human waste is in the melting water. our project was to find a way of a portable toilet, transforming the human waste into fertilizer and bring it back down (cause most of the porters walk back without carrying anything, so we would pay them double, if they bring waste down. but they don't wanna carry the waste, so we would include some education programs in our project).

Every team member had his own aspect, mine was the technology, to find a way of transforming the waste into fertilizer. I have been working for a long time and I asked people from all over the world and still don't know the best solution. The climate and the fact that it is on a glacier in the highest mountain range of the world makes it really difficult).

maybe you should ask Luana Rebholz. She is called lulu on the community, or you might find her on facebook. she joined the expedition the the magnetig northpole and might know similar problems, because the region is nearly the same as nunavut.

did you already decide if it is a environmental project or a social project? or both?

so it should help the region. ok. I guess its about the people living there... how do they live in their environment, which is changing, are they forced to change habits because of climate change? hmmmm...it is difficult because you don0t know the region yet....

I will think about it more...if I have a good idea, i'll write you, ok?"

Well, I think we didn't make any agreement on the aim of our project. I thought we're still collecting information about what were other YEs doing and what do they (Mike's Team)expect us to do. Let me sum up what we know (please, correct me if I misunderstood something):
- Mike didn't seem interested in linking different expedition's projects
- Previous projects concentrated on various aspects of environmental problems, both social and ecological
- the Magnetic North Pole (Resolute) YEs (most environmentally close to Nunavut, Baffin Island)weren't preparing any Project before the Expedition but during their stay in Resolute they were observing local community and came up with an idea of preparing some activities for kids from Resolute. They saw potential in this young but bored generation.
- Saskia noticed that with the opening of NW Passage new problems will come

My proposition is to first investigate the needs and problems (those future ones as well) and see the results. I'm very concerned about the NW Passage - adressing our project to not-yet exisitng troubles would be wise, because we wouldn't fight with problems, we would prevent them.

One more thing: in comparison to Resolute, Baffin Island with its main city - Iqualuit, Arctic College, Arctic Winter Games, Baffin Regional associations etc. is not 'deserted', there are much more possibilities of self-development for youths and kids. Would you agree with me?

really really sorry for my late reply since i was stuck wt the visa application (
I was very interested in education and raising awareness, but when scanning almost the Pangaea proj, I found that Mike Horn team prefer some practical activities like collecting waste, preserve the coral, shark..
therefore if we can discover an serious aspect in Nunavut and attack it, i think we will be more successful.

hey good to hear from you Phoebe!!
i think all project ideas should be
* not cost intensive - there is always too little $$
* focused on youth outreach
* easy for future youths to visit & continue outreach
* include a clean-up
* maybe do some restoration / show locals how to / investigate ways how to
* focus on using Pangaea sponsor's technology - water/ sanitation
* social help - reach out to kids & make it fun for them - they dont want a "school" experience
* waste - removal / recycle
* time limit during expedition - reach out/ local contact with kids / leave them with some ideas & a eagerness to continue / yeps go back home & inspire others to follow project
* do something unique to attract the media attention - in Nunavut + international

Ariane: "As for the projects, we had time to speak with the local people and to hear what they had to say about the community. The problems in Resolute and other Northern communities are various. As you may have seen in the video Luana and I did during the expedition, Resolute doesn't have any proper trash removal system so everything you can think of ends up in the dump. Every summer, a buldozer goes over it and then they start again. Also, the soiled water goes straight to the ocean, they power with fuel, they don't recycle, etc. So as you see, northern communities don't have enough ressources to develop a sustainable way of living. So our goal is to create awareness in the community to, ultimately, make Resolute a more eco-friendly village.

For your expedition, Yiou (maybe i heard) will go through Resolute and it would be fantastic if we could work out a project together.

Resolute, if you want my opinion, has a lot of potential. There's a lot of passionate people out there that would be willing to commit to an upcoming project. People there are bored. Honestly. They got nothing to do. If we can make them build a greenhouse or develop a recycling system, they would feel more useful and would see that they can achieve something.

There's about 4 or 5 planes by week going to Reslute and 2 ships during the summer that bring food, appliances, etc. It's not alot and shipping is super costly.
What are your project ideas? We wrote a booklet about Resolute and we are almost done correcting it, so I can send you one copy as soon as it's done if you like. I personnally think the project could be supported by the local school because we need to get the youth involved. As I said, they need something to hold on to and if we give them a project to accomplish, it will be great.

Have a great day and good initiative They'll like that! "