Behind Green Steps: GLORIA CORRADINI

Green Steps Team is international and diverse. You can meet some of us during our events. Others maybe are working behind the scenes, or even in another continent, but we all play a part to succeed in our mission. This is possible thanks to individuals and their hearts, which is something that goes beyond their job description.
To make you all feel closer to our community, every month we post a short introduction to one of our Team Members, to celebrate the people behind Green Steps.

Cross the borders to understand they were never there. Learn about nature to grow a heart willing to protect the world. Understand the need for good teachers and invest in the mission of nature education.

Guiding local activities outdoor means that we create a connection between people and nature. It is the first step to make them love the local environment, care about it, and get to understand the urgency to protect nature at large.

But sometimes such enlightenment can come at the end of a long series of journeys. That’s what happened to our Gloria!

OR HOW SHOULD WE CALL YOU?

    In Italy people call me Glò or Gò, just to shorten my name…
My grandpa used to call me “Glurien”, which in our local dialect simply means “little Gloria”…it makes the name longer, but also cuter.

WHAT DO YOU DO FOR GREEN STEPS?

    I assist Green Steps to run local and regional activities in St. Pölten.
Last Summer, for example, we participated in NÖKISS, the largest kids festival in Austria, where we engaged several children in a demo of our activities, such as “plants and friends” and “insect hunt”! Here, during the whole year, we organise on a regular basis “Plastic Pirates”, our trash collection activity, and also hikes to discover beautiful old trees, insects and birds. When the weather is too cold, we organise documentary screenings and discussions: the only event that can’t be outdoor and - because of the pandemic - often had to be online.

On a regional level, I attended last Summer edition and we are already working to make the Hoopoe summit 2022 happen. It is an international summer camp that aims to empower young people to make a positive impact and enhance their connection with nature.
Until now I have actively participated and assisted activity design and facilitation, but now I am also getting trained to become a certified Nature Guide and fully embrace my role as an educator!

HOW DO YOU MANAGE THE OFFICE AND OUTDOOR TASKS WITH YOUR DAILY LIFE?

    I don’t really have an exciting daily routine… every morning I need to spend at least half an hour on a tasty, rich, and relaxing breakfast…otherwise I just can’t wake up!

After that, I walk or cycle to the office, and my favourite is when we have activities to run so I can spend the day outside.
I mostly spend my evenings at home, calling my good friends in Italy. I have quite an open personality: people around me know pretty much everything about me, but my colleagues might don’t know that I have a small collection of 3 singing bowls. The biggest of them comes directly from the monkey temple in Katmandu! I love their deep relaxing sound, and I would like to have more sizes… I definitely need to travel to Asia more often!

SOUNDS LIKE YOU FANCY EXPLORING AND TRAVELLING A LOT. IS THIS HOW YOU ENDED UP JOINING GREEN STEPS?

    Kind of. I come from Italy, from a small rural town crossed by the Po River in Lombardy, at the border with Emilia Romagna. I never really liked my own town, my fellow citizens nor the boring flat and industrialized landscape.
These feelings triggered my desire for leaving, so I started travelling abroad as soon as I could, right after high school. Back then I spent a year in New Zealand with a working holiday visa. Afterward, I have been travelling quite a lot while completing my BSc in Natural and environmental science from the University of Parma, and an MSc in Biology with a focus on behavioral ecology from Wageningen University, The Netherlands.
I always loved nature and wildlife and for many years I thought that science would have been my work and my life. After graduation I spent a couple of months in the forest of Costa Rica as a research assistant, to study Capuchin monkeys’ behavior. After the pandemic outburst, I had to leave the project - of course - but this gave me the time to realize that in order to protect nature we need to start educating the people. Humans are the main cause of climate crises and biodiversity loss, so we need to start from there. While looking for an opportunity to become an environmental educator, I learned about Green Steps and I applied on the ESC portal.

TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT YOURSELF USING A BOOK

    The Consolations of the Forest: Alone in a Cabin on the Siberian Taiga by Sylvain Tesson.
I read this book in my early twenties: it is the diary of a French man who decides to spend 6 months alone in the Siberian Forest in wintertime, by the side of the Baikal Lake. While reading it, I used to think that I share a lot of the author’s life philosophy.

WHAT DO YOU EXPECT FOR OUR MISSION AT GREEN STEPS?

    I wish that more and more locals will get involved in our local activities; we will also connect with more organizations that share our values so that we can grow together. More people and communities will board the ARK, understanding its potentiality and actively using it.