🇪🇬🤝🇬🇷 Creativity in Action: Adel Tawfeak’s Contribution to MADMAX in Thessaloniki - funded by ANNA LINDH FOUNDATION
- EER
- Aug 1
- 3 min read
As part of the Anna Lindh Foundation’s “Creativity in Action” framework, ESAI EN ROI welcomed Adel Tawfeak from Egypt to Thessaloniki between 13 July 2026 - 3 August 2026 for a mobility connected with our MADMAX – Make Art from Discards initiative.
Adel joined the project not only as a trainer, but also as a mentor, advisor and potential future cooperation partner, bringing extensive experience in youth work, community development, environmental action, entrepreneurship and capacity building.
🌱 Learning, training and supervision
During the last two (2) weeks of July, Adel worked alongside the ESAI EN ROI team and trainer Martin Boissoneau, contributing to the training programme and supporting the young volunteers through guidance, reflection and practical learning.
His contribution focused particularly on circular thinking, environmental responsibility, creative reuse and community action, connecting the broader themes of MADMAX with experiences and approaches from Egypt.
Adel also took part in the supervision and coordination of the activities, while both sides exchanged feedback on the implementation of the programme, the learning needs of participants and ways to improve the methodology.
The cooperation was therefore not limited to delivering training sessions. It created a space for mutual learning, with Adel contributing his expertise while also becoming familiar with ESAI EN ROI’s participatory and artistic approach to youth engagement.
🎨 Adapting the programme to young participants
One of the most important lessons from the mobility was the need to adapt educational activities to the actual profile and needs of participants.
The volunteers were very young, and this created some challenges in applying the complete training programme through practice. Rather than treating this as a limitation, the teams used it as an opportunity to adjust the approach.
Some activities were simplified, made more experiential and connected more directly with the participants’ level of experience. The emphasis moved towards learning by doing, creative participation, discussion and gradual engagement, allowing the young volunteers to take part meaningfully without being overwhelmed by the theoretical elements.
This experience provided valuable feedback for future editions of the programme and for the development of similar activities in different contexts.
🇪🇬 Taking the experience beyond Greece
An important outcome of Adel’s visit was the discussion about continuing and transferring the experience to Assiut, Egypt.
Through meetings between Adel and the ESAI EN ROI team, we explored possibilities for future cooperation and discussed how the methodology developed through MADMAX could be adapted to the local realities, interests and needs of young people in Assiut.
Rather than simply reproducing the same activities, the idea is to take the core concepts — creativity, environmental awareness, circular thinking, reuse and youth participation — and reshape them according to the Egyptian context.
This created a valuable bridge between Thessaloniki and Assiut, with the possibility of turning one mobility into the starting point for future exchanges, training activities and community-based initiatives.
🌍 Creativity in Action
The mobility reflected the spirit of the Anna Lindh Foundation’s Creativity in Action approach: bringing people together across the Mediterranean, creating space for dialogue and transforming ideas into practical action.
Adel’s contribution added an important Egyptian and Mediterranean perspective to the MADMAX experience, while the cooperation opened new possibilities for ESAI EN ROI and its partners to continue working together beyond this mobility.
From training rooms to public spaces, from recycled art to environmental activities, the experience showed that creativity can be a starting point for learning, cooperation and change.
And perhaps most importantly, the visit did not end when Adel left Thessaloniki.
It left behind ideas, lessons and the possibility of taking the work further — from Greece to Egypt, and from one Mediterranean community to another. 🇬🇷🤝🇪🇬♻️
Comments