Pitch

ASOC WALL: https://www.canva.com/design/DAFjRT0GKtQ/5FeFTfOg-A0SfmUV7Du2xw/view?utm...

The “Prirodoslovna Skola High school” of Karlovac and the “IIS Boccardi Tiberio” of Termoli decided to join the ASOC Interreg Italy-Croatia project. We wanted to improve the skills that we already have and to add some new ones, and also to increase our knowledge in various sectors. 

We agreed to work on the project “Take it Slow” - SMART AND SLOW TOURISM SUPPORTING ADRIATIC HERITAGE FOR TOMORROW. The project has a budget of € 3.764.695,71 and 12 partners. 

We decided to undertake the analysis of this specific project as we are a touristic area and we wanted to promote our territory in an ecological way, that is exactly what caught our attention. The core of this project is to promote the territory and improve tourism but at the same time to take care of the planet and of the environment. 

Our work is meant to draw people’s interest and attention to the local areas that are financed by EU funds. Moreover, it will highlight the importance of the cooperation between countries and the strong presence of other countries’ culture also in our territory. Our biggest hope is to let people become aware of everything they can find not so far from their own spot, especially the newest generations that are the ones that will guide us in the future. 

We are the obvious example of people aware of the beauty surrounding us, amazed by that and wishing to visit the sites to know everything about them. Working on this project makes us understand the importance of doing things in a sustainable way, so we can care about the planet and even learn how to use technology in this process. 

We got completely involved in this activity and we’ve asked ourselves some questions:

  - Where do the European funds go? 

  - Are they used in the correct way and in the right pilot areas? 

All our research was based on these questions and on how the funds are used to increase the tourist flows on the affected areas. We’ve studied how Municipalities, Regions and all the organizations involved have committed the funds received, if they've used them for their purpose and in particular for the ultimate purpose of the project Take it Slow.

All the partners have worked together to achieve the same aim: to create a sustainable and slow tourism. We’ve discovered a lot of different news on the project. The deadline has been postponed to June 30th, 2023. 

The data found on the Opencoesione, Interreg and partners’ websites were the starting point of our research. They were useful to discover a lot of different information. 

We tried in many ways to contact all the partners but only 2 of them answered our questions: the Molise Region and the “Teatro Pubblico Pugliese”. We couldn’t speak with anyone else involved in the project. We prepared a questionnaire for the other partners with some questions about our civic monitoring, but they didn’t do it and we had to do the research without their data. 

We did two important interviews. One with the doctors Maria Tirabasso and Simona Forte of the “Molise Region'' and the doctor Lino Manosperta of the “Teatro Pubblico Pugliese”. Doing this, we collected different data and we discovered new information that we didn’t know before and that was very important in our research.

With this project we want to promote sustainable, intelligent and slow tourism throughout the Adriatic region.

On the Croatian’s side, when we were given the task of conducting citizen monitoring, we first held a meeting where we chose the project we would monitor, and the people we would interview. We came up with the questions we would ask them, divided the roles amongst ourselves and got to work. The project we decided to monitor was the Monika cooperation project, which aims to build a hydroponic greenhouse on the premises of our school. The interview was conducted by one of the project managers: Denis Novosel, our social media manager Klara, and Nikola Potkrajac, our Head Blogger. The people we interviewed were the school principal Nenad Klasan and herbalism professor Diana Jurčević. We learned from the director about the value of the project and the deadline for the completion. Some information remained undisclosed. We learned from professor Jurčević that the hydroponic greenhouse would be used by the students of the school, so that they could learn more about herbalism and hydroponics. After that we visited the construction site of the hydroponics greenhouse and took some pictures.

Its overall objective is to promote the entire Adriatic region as a green, intelligent, sustainable, accessible and slow cross-border tourist destination, through an innovative model of an integrated management between the natural cultural and local heritage.

The aim of our research as a school is to understand how the funds provided by the EU are invested in the Adriatic area and in particular in our Region, assessing the risks, suggesting solutions, proposing activities and everything that is related to the project “Take it Slow”. 

We’d like to continue to analyze this project for different reasons: 

• We have not yet collected all the necessary data that we need for our monitoring, which are essential for the development of tourism in the Adriatic Region. 
• We would like to implement our studies related to how the funds are used, their consistency and their usefulness.

To go on following the project we have some suggestions that we would like to apply: 

• The involvement of the local community: we want to collaborate with the living communities along the Adriatic coast, to obtain a complete vision of what their needs are. We would like to organize meetings, surveys and focus groups. 
• Monitoring the tourist practices: we want to give value to the impact of the visit activities detected in the territory. 
• Awareness-raising and training activities: we want to organize seminars and workshops for tourists and local people, to teach them the concept of sustainable tourism. 

Through these proposals we would like to promote a growth based on respecting the environment, preserving local traditions and improving the quality of life of the communities involved.