The Ivan Patzaichin – Mila 23 Association launched the Călăuzele Apelor network, in fact, the club of children who built a canoe with their own hands under the guidance of the Rowmania team carpenter, Viorel Gheorghe. The children aim to contribute, through collaboration and exchange of experiences with other children in the national network, to local development that capitalizes on the natural and cultural heritage of the communities.
The project includes a strong non-formal education side, with national coverage, and was launched in the Danube Delta, where most of the crafts made by children are located. At the launch event of the local division, Călăuzele Deltai, 45 children from Chilia Veche, Sfântu Gheorghe and Sulina participated, together with teachers, local authorities and community representatives from the three localities. The event represents the first meeting in a series through which the Association aims to coagulate, at the national level, a network of children - guides who want to protect and creatively exploit the waters as part of Romania's natural and cultural heritage and as a resource for development .
"We started the Water Guides network out of the desire to draw children closer to the waters, to make them understand that water is a natural and cultural resource that they received to take care of it and to use it for their own benefit and that of the community, equally. In the long term, they will have the opportunity to acquire new skills, useful for personal growth and to be able to contribute to the common well-being through activities friendly to nature and the environment, which capitalize on the local specificity: gastronomy, cultural tourism, ecotourism, crafts and design, agricultural activities ," says Teodor Frolu, vice president of the Ivan Patzaichin – Mila 23 Association.
The children learned what it means to be a water guide, with its benefits and responsibilities, and received medals in recognition of their quality as guides. The activities proposed for the national network aim to encourage them to become proactive in finding solutions to problems, engaging and cooperating for a common mission in the community. The little guides also took part in a demonstration of a guided tour in Sulina, supported by Denis Atanase, a student of the "Jean Bart" Sulina Theoretical High School. Starting from the example of a guided tour of the local landscape supported by Denis, the children received a project theme to define a cultural and natural tourism route in the localities they belong to, until the next meeting of the guides. The students proposed to look for solutions together and to act for the protection and promotion of the Delta's natural and cultural values, to encourage tourists willing to discover the Danube Delta with care for the environment and living, with interest in the cultural riches and to look at the experience as an opportunity to exercise in the open air.
The Călăuzele Apelor network also includes children from Drobeta Turnu Severin, Eșelnița, Piscu, who built with Viorel Gheorghe, between 2018 and 2021, a wooden boat with oars, each named after their locality. In 2022, the Ivan Patzaichin – Mila 23 Association proposes to organize a first meeting of the Water Guides at the national level.
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