As part of the Ground Up project, we developed a local activity, based on the Oxford debate methodology, involving local young people to discuss the worrying situation caused by climate change in the rural areas of Sicily, and in particular in the area of the Sicani mountains. The participants were involved in a reflection on the impact that arson, drought and rising temperatures have on these territories and, in particular, on the scarcity of water resources and the problem of guaranteeing the right to water.
The participants were divided into two groups: one group defended the thesis that climate change can be countered through small everyday actions; another group instead emphasised the irrelevance of such actions, making rather clear the urgency of structural intervention and awareness-raising, also through the involvement of institutions.
The Oxford debate was particularly useful in bringing the young people, and the members of the municipal administrations who attended the event, to reflect on the phenomenon of fires and the structural inequalities of access to water that characterise the rural and peripheral areas of Sicily.
