This year, Castellers de Vilafranca hope to reach 700 participants. The project will culminate on May 17 with the competition between schools in Cal Figarot.

 

 

Another year, and already 4 years ago, a new edition of JoVerd arrives, a project that was born in 2010 to bring the Castellers of Vilafranca closer together and open the doors of Cal Figarot to the young people of the town and the region. As in recent years, the JoVerd not only begins and ends with the competition between educational centers that will be held at the social headquarters of the Greens next Saturday, May 17, but begins many weeks before with the workshops in each of the schools and high schools in the Alt Penedès.

 

The workshops for this 2014 edition have already started a few weeks ago and are taking place in the physical education classes of 4th year ESO or 1st year high school students. The people in charge of Castellers de Vilafranca give them the basic guidelines for the construction of the castells and it is the same students who have to form a castellera gang for the competition on May 17, the culmination of the project. The head of the group is usually the physical education teacher and the group can involve students from other courses in the same school.

 

This year it is expected to surpass the participation records achieved in the 2013 edition. At the moment, 10 educational centers have already confirmed their participation in the workshops -when last year there were 9-, and it is planned that more than 700 students took part in the competition on May 17 - last year there were 600. To follow this new edition of JoVerd on social networks, Castellers de Vilafranca suggest using the label #5JoVerd.

 

This fifth edition of the JoVerd presents some novelties compared to the previous ones. The first is that next to the prize for the winning group, the Oriol Rossell prize is added, which will be for the group that is able to make the best castle without involving any castle keeper or falconer in the structure. At the same time, a design competition for the Joverd poster is also being added, so the centers will have the opportunity to win other prizes alongside the castellers proper. A jury will evaluate all poster proposals and the winner will be the one that the Castellers de Vilafranca will use to promote this edition of JoVerd. In addition, the prize for the winning center will be a copy of the gang's book. All the posters presented will be exhibited at the Greens' premises, Cal Figarot. An Instagram contest will be launched soon, the rules of which will be announced in the coming days.

 

 

With four editions of JoVerd in their pockets and the fifth underway, the Castellers de Vilafranca value the experience of the project very positively, since in recent years the group has experienced a remarkable increase in the entry of castellers and very young castelleras . In addition, year after year, the educational centers look forward to the initiative again, which becomes a fun, competitive day that allows interaction between the secondary education centers in the region.