NAME: Hélder Filipe Ramada Martins
ROLE: Encanto Radical – Association – Treasurer
SPECIALISATION: Primary School Teacher, Physical Education, Specialising in Special Education
Introduction and Experience in Working with Young People, Sport and the Environment
Hélder Martins is the founder of Encanto Radical – Associação, created on 28-11-2011. He was Chairman of the Board for the first eight years, and over these years has developed and coordinated various sports, recreational, entertainment and leisure activities. We highlight the practice of Canoeing, Canyoning, Extreme Activities, Hiking, Beach Volleyball, Futsal, Paintball, Orienteering and Mountain Biking, among other entertainment and leisure activities.
As part of his professional experience, he has taught Physical Education in various schools and more recently he has been working with children and young people with Special Educational Needs, as part of Inclusive Education.
As for his associative work, he is a member of other youth associations, having set up this Association in 2011, where he and other members have promoted holidays on the move, coordinated activities in Free Time Occupation programmes, promoted and promoted training activities for young people, as well as accompanying and monitoring Youth Volunteering Programmes in Nature and Forests. In the sports area, it has developed a range of radical outdoor activities, such as climbing, sliding, abseiling, adventure bridges, archery, paintball and other traditional and leisure games.
As far as the environment and sport are concerned, it lists the walks it has organised over the years, and next March it is organising the XIV Spring Walk, always allied to concepts of protecting and preserving nature and forests, with the aim of promoting sustainable practices, protecting and promoting the environment, health and the preservation of ecosystems.
In your opinion, what are the main environmental challenges our community faces?
Above all, there is a need to make the community aware that each and every one of us can make a difference. We can all contribute something, whether it’s rethinking the way we use certain resources, refusing to use plastics, reducing drinking water, reusing equipment or even recycling and repurposing equipment that could otherwise be thrown away. All of these aspects are important, and above all we must set an example and spread our good deeds so that others follow in our footsteps. Young people are aware that they have to do something to preserve and protect the environment, and it’s also up to them to implement and promote a policy of preservation and promotion of sustainable practices.
How do you think sport can contribute to young people’s environmental education?
Sport has been a key element in stimulating actions where environmental issues can be the focus of human attention. Increasingly, biodiversity and the preservation of ecosystems are being promoted and protected, and sustainable environmental practices are being instilled through sport.
In our case, hiking, water sports, canyoning and canoeing are the sporting activities that have the greatest impact on their practitioners, and on which we focus and promote the environment, nature and health through physical activity or sport.
What steps should we take to effectively implement these ideas and tackle environmental challenges?
The next steps are to create activities in which we promote environmental sustainability policies through sport, culture, the arts and other areas, so that they can be an element in promoting education, values and attitudes.
Speaking of Encanto Radical – Associação, in our environmental axis, we have actions planned to energise and promote environmental sustainability.
We have the Box of Nature Guardians, which aims to create a team that is alert to environmental crimes, monitors and accompanies actions where we protect and promote nature. We then organise walks and aquatic hikes in close proximity to nature and its ecosystems, always in accordance with the policy of leaving the least impact on the surrounding environment. We will also be promoting the reduction of consumption and promoting sustainability in terms of certain natural resources. We will energise and promote Heritage, the Environment and Nature by publicising spaces that are in their natural state. We will promote the 5Rs, Rethink, Refuse, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, with a view to promoting environmental education. We will have photo environmental awards, an ‘I Draw in Nature’ workshop and actions with partners, where we will organise the ‘One School, One Garden’ actions.
With our reformulated and restructured programme, we will certainly change mentalities and promote actions that enable human beings to take a different stance on the need to promote education in environmental sustainability.
Final Statement/Suggestions
The promotion of sport is and will always be an asset for the propagation and dynamisation of activities that promote environmental education, so we understand that this dynamisation promotes knowledge, understanding, develops skills and motivation to acquire values and attitudes, which are necessary to deal with environmental issues and/or problems and thus find sustainable solutions.