At the conference, I had the pleasure of meeting the cooridator of REMIDA Perth, Ms. Elissa McAUliffe. She is passionate about the program, the inportance of recycling and expressions of creativity. I hope to visit REMIDA Perth someday and participate in one of Elissa’s workshops. Take a peek at their Gallery and check out how REMIDA Perth celebrates REMIDA Day!

Do you have any questions you would like to ask her?
Stay tuned. I am hoping to feature an interview with Elissa in the weeks to come.

“ReMida is a scrap yard in Randers where trash and scraps from the industry is left. Here there is material for several practical and musical projects, and the different materials encourage the imagination of the pupils. It is inspired by a similar project in Reggio Emilia, a Northern Italian provincial town where the educational foundations is about stimulating the child’s ability to immerse itself and acquire knowledge about things and events. It is the day-care institution Midgaard that has started the initiative, and all schools and institutions in Randers can make use of the storage. Apart from the day-care institution Midgaard, institutions in Roskilde, Hirtshals and Vandel also participate in the test project with ReMida.

Several workshop activities are a good way of including the musical/practical dimension in the school. This gives the pupils the opportunity to be creative themselves. It can be permanent or temporary workshops that you establish, apart from the purely technical visual arts room, where you can make kites, masks, models, drama, games, stories, movement, etc. Workshops can also be established outside, where the pupils can make food, build caves, find insects, take care of gardens, etc. The possibilities are limitless.

The little initiatives in the everyday life can for example be morning song, story of the day, game of the day, poem of the day, riddle of the week, etc. The little things can be just as important as larger and more expensive projects.

You can make educational projects about architecture and the aesthetics of the surroundings. Let the children help decorate or let them make little models of their dream classroom. A lot of inspiration can be obtained from the children in connection with rebuilding and redecoration.

The storyline method is based on the children’s own knowledge of the world and the pupils’ creative and argumentative thinking is appreciated. Pupils are active in the learning process and they learn through ex-periences by investigating, exploring, reflecting, debating and acting.”

From an article titled “On the road of asethetics towards better edcuation” written by Educational Environment Consultant and Architect Ulla Kjærvang, The Danish Centre of Educational Environment (DCUM)

The REMIDA Centre for Creative Recycling provides the Municipal Infant Toddler Centers and Preschools of Reggio Emilia with an abundance of materials, otherwise known as “clean waste” from the industrial sector, to be manipulated, recreated and celebrated.

REMIDA was born in 1996 as a joint project between Reggio Emilia Municipality and the utility company, AGAC (now know as ENIA, the first Italian environmentally-friendly utility company). The idea was to cultivate a relationship between culture, schools, enterprises and local authority with “the purpose of creating new resources”.

There were a lot of smiles in the auditorium when we were told that the RE of REMIDA represents “made in Reggio Emilia” and MIDA represents the greek mythological character Midas. Midas, in case you have forgotten, is popularly remembered for his ability to turn everything he touched into gold.

At REMIDA, “off-cuts from production in the local industry are collected, exhibited and offered free of charge to schools, local authorities and other bodies involved in education and care in the Reggio Emilia province”. To date, 200 companies donate clean waste to the centre, providing the social sector with “unlimited resources further developing creativity and environmental awareness”. The Centers volunteers from the Friends of Reggio Children International Association, assist the staff in displaying, in a impressively neat and organized manner, a large assortment of waste materials for whomever wishes to re-invent them.

In May each year, re-inventions are the focus of a celebration known as “REMIDA Day”, which “promotes cultural events around the theme of creative recycling”. Before visiting the Centre we were shown slides of the REMIDA Day Market. Here we saw members of the community, from all walks of life, in a large brightly decorated parking lot, sharing their re-inventions and experimenting with others.

Near the end of conference Day 2, a large group of us eagerly boarded a bus and REMIDA was our first stop. I was so surprised by the size of the space and the amount of materials on display, that I can’t recollect exactly what was inside, for this I apologize. I do remember touching rolls of fabric and strings of ribbon, leafing through piles of paper and dipping my hand into a barrel of plastics. I walked around with my eyes wide open, marveling at the available resources and the organization in which they were laid out.

Friendly volunteers were on hand to answer questions and a shop was set up with recycled goods. I bought a transparency with this quote “Re-using means to use again: first you use it, and then again until it is done and there is no more…” from 3 yr. old Mariachiara, printed on it. The idea is to staple the ends together and place it over a tea-light — very clever.

Next to the shop was the REMIDA Library,”Saved By Remida”, which is stocked with used books for members of the community to sign out. Here, books are donated from libraries and personal collections and is it once again, volunteers who organize and maintain this feature of the REMIDA Center.

I hope to have access to a REMIDA Center one day as it is a fine representation of a teachers dream “art cupboard” and a communities ability to creatively reduce, reuse and recycle.

The photo above was taken on the grounds of the Centro Internationale Loris Malaguzzi, which no longer houses the REMIDA Centre. It was dark when we arrived, so I couldn’t take a more up to date photo of the current facility.

Reggio Emilia. A city whose Municipal Infant Toddler Centers and Preschools, I had read about in textbooks and journals, for Early Childhood Educators. A city I knew nothing else about, until my visit there, last week.

I attended an intense three and a half day conference held by Reggio Children at the Loris Malaguzzi International Center. The focus of the conference was the Ten Year Anniversary of REMIDA, a “creative recycling center”. I, like most of the 400 participants from over 24 different countries, was there, not only to celebrate the longevity of an inspirational program, but also to experience the Municipal Infant Toddler Centers and Preschools, we had read so much about.

The first two days of the conference were filled with speeches from various members of the community. I won’t go into detail on what each member spoke about but I would like to highlight words and phrases that stuck in my mind. Words and phrases I will always associate with the city of Reggio Emilia and continue to reflect upon.

Community. Change. Creative Relationships. Dialogue with Empty Spaces. Cooperation and Collaboration. Visible Children. Mixed Generations. The Value of Organization.