The project by São Brasenses students and teachers “Surf in Serra do Caldeirão” was the winner of the Green Project Awards Contest, in the Youth Initiative category.
The award ceremony took place on the 21st, at Culturgest, in Lisbon, hosted by the Secretary of State for Sports and Youth Emídio Guerreiro.
In this 7th edition of the Green Awards, the students of the Professional Technical Support Course for Sports Management, from the José Belchior Viegas School Group of São Brás de Alportel, were awarded the 1st prize for the environmentally friendly project “Surf in Serra do Caldeirão”.
This is an innovative project of surfboards built with recycled cork stoppers, developed in the previous school year by students of the 3rd year of that Professional Course, under the coordination of Professor Rui Beijoca and with the support of Octávio Lourenço, from Ferox company.
In the project, 12 students were involved and 1250 corks were needed to build a board. The reuse of this raw material, representative of the municipality of São Brás de Alportel, allowed to achieve good results in terms of image, fluctuation, reduction in production costs and implementation of a new industry.
According to Rui Beijoca, project coordinator, “this board has a double functionality: in addition to being a wonderful decorative object, it is also functional for surfing, for which it has already been tested”.
Nídia Amaro, director of the José Belchior Viegas School Group, classifies this achievement as representative of the capacity of young students, stressing that “vocational education is, increasingly, the path to success for young people who intend to complete schooling to enter the world of work”.
At the awards ceremony, Secretary of State Emídio Guerreiro highlighted the importance of encouraging the participation and involvement of young people in projects that challenge citizenship, associations and sustainability among young people.
In a gesture of recognition, the Municipality of São Brás de Alportel approved the attribution of a Vote of Praise to everyone involved in this project, hailing “the effort, commitment, dedication, merit and creativity employed in the 'O Surf' project in Serra do Caldeirão', thanking the dignified and high promotion of the municipality of São Brás de Alportel throughout the country and across borders”.
Of an international nature, the Green Project Awards already have seven editions in Portugal, always maintaining their initial purpose of “recognizing good practices in projects that promote sustainable development […] involving young people, both individually and at a level associative, conditioning their behavior and attitudes, adopting and creating sustainable practices”.
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