With the advent of good weather, many of us have started making plans for the summer. Holidays, beach, trips, mountain... However, many children will have something else in their heads: “Will I be able to attend the colonies this year?”

Although we can find many types of colonies in the Basque Country, not all of them offer the possibility of encouraging contact with nature and working directly on the environment. For Kutxa Ekogunea (Gipuzkoa). “In last year’s colonies we worked mostly on the garden and the children gave an impressive answer,” says Maialen Sistiaga, head of education and leisure at Ekogunea.

Orientation and survival to live in nature

Open colonies are organized in Ekogunea for children between the ages of 6 and 12. Children who meet every morning are given tools to live and understand nature. The objective, according to the organizers, is to socialise the content (environment, ecology, nature care) they produce in Ekogunea; to move from words to deeds.

With kids, of course, they're working on these issues through games. “This year we will be working mainly on orientation and survival issues in the colonies: we will learn, for example, to identify edible plants, to assemble a shank or to guide us with compass and astronomy.”

The participants of the camp will visit different spaces of the park every day: today the orchard, tomorrow the river, after tomorrow the meadow, then the forest... In this way, children learn directly, with their eyes and hands, the elements of nature.

This year there will also be Ludoteca

In recent years, members of Ekogune have detected a lack of child entertainment for children under the age of six. For the first time this year, the Ludoteca has been organised to turn the sport’s situation around. With objectives similar to those of the colonies, most of the children in the Ludoteca will be in the playground (3 to 10 years). “They can play autonomously and participate in cooperative games.” However, from the Ludoteca there will also be exits to the garden and to the river, so the smaller ones will also be able to enjoy the corners of Ekogunea.

The younger future gardeners and vegetarians also have their space this summer. From a young age we enjoyed our hands staining dirt...