18 of July The topic of the day was project development. We finished our booklets, set needs and objectives, defined problems. We focused on the needs for our chosen projects then the aims and objectives using the NAOMIE method. Erasmus+ aims and priorities are now understandable for all of us. Last intercultural evening: Italy, Tunisia, Jordan, Lebanon and Morocco brought exotic flavours to our everyday Estonian cusine table. Almontaser used again his artistic skills and made henna paintings for us. We all were really excited and the line to henna painting was long. 19 of July We got to know the application form and inclusion dimension. It was intense work to fill in the application form. Luckily we had experienced grandmas who checked our progress and gave some advice. In our team everything went smoothly until Nefeli's computer gave up. We filled in the timetable what we want to achieve with our project and presented it. Our jury voted based on our presentation. Every team passed the Vardi National Agency. After hard project writing task we had a free evening just to relax. Secret friend game has gone wild. Participants worked hard to trump each other on the secret friend game. Balloons, hugs, flowers and much more... There were many secret envelopes with surprises. Some days even huge posters. I loved that game a lot. It was nice to make up new gifts for my secret friend and receive clever ones as well. I am really proud of my treasure hunt game. I left different hint all over the house. As I heard later Milda was pleased ☺ 20 of July Energizer Honey Bunny was easy until you had to go in the middle of the circle. We presented our ideas and made DEOR. We ended our morning session with making posters about how we are going to promote our experience in our organizations and how to include people with fewer opportunities also into those projects. We discussed with learning buddies how the project had been gone to fill in our youth pass. Net out of our thought. In the evening self evaluation and meeting expectations. valuation and farewell party. Secret friend ceremony. It was my best (and first) secret friend game ever. I was pretty certain that my secret friend is Kristi. I got hints that she/he must be Estonian because I received a magnet written on Estonian and even though my SF said that her Estonian frind helped her I was pretty sure it was just a trick. I also made a list of secret friends that others have. Because I had to handle many secret friend gifts. But Heleri bamboozled me. I was sure that her secret friend is Youssef because I gave him two times gifts from Heleri. She is a good player and have good friends that help her during the game. Anyway, I felt a great love and got amazing gifts. 21 of July Bus trip back to Tallinn. Emotional goodbye at the airport. But luckily some people decided to extend their vacation in Tallinn and stayed for some extra days. It was nice to host so many international people in my homeland.
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14 of July It was a France independence day, definately more special day for Morgane than us. But weather smiled to us all, it was a sunny day at first. What is better than sharing love on a beautiful day with a hug game. But we also did serious job. Our topic in the morning was non-formal learning. Ufuk led us through non-formal learning aspects. We stuck labels outside on the wall to categorize formal, non-formal and informal learning. After that we had an Erasmus+ Kahoot quiz. Questions were about EVS but also about everything that was related with Erasmus+ programme. In the afternoon we had a World Cafe - my best part during the whole project. We had 4 different tables with different topics. We discussed our ideas while we were served by charming waitresses. The menu included list of delights. Because weather changed so quickly on that day, Michal said golden words "You can have 4 seasons in 1 minute". A day ended with Romanian, Bosnian & Herzegovinian, Greek, Lebanese, Portuguese intercultural evenings. Lidia surprised us with a puppet theater. The play that she made was so comic and informative. Every evening we had a dancing marathon. One song was totally epic, but it was catchy. 15 of July Morning started with reflecting walk with our learning buddy. Lidia introduced me a job shadowing opportunity which is also a part of Erasmus+ programme. Youthpass and 8 key competences are like a shoe and socks – they are always together. Each of 8 competences was an isolated island where we had to solve a task in a limited amount of time. For example we had to learn a new language, calculate or draw. I don't remember the exact date and topic but suddenly I was in a group with Bili and Vincenzo. So, we had an opportunity to talk about Bulgaria. Bulgaria was the connection point for us and it was nice to share emotions with people who understands you. In the afternoon we worked on the inclusion of youth with fewer opportunities. We tried to put ourselves into their situation in the groups. It is really hard for them to enjoy life as other do. Fortunetly, Erasmus+ is dedicated to them and ready to help, our job is just spread the information. In the evening we had an open space session. Four experienced members of our group led a session. Billy's session without any extra ressources was so simple but at the same time so funny. It is a good example of life that you don't need much to be happy. Intercultural evenings by Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Poland. Nika demonstrated her culture traditions by predicting future. All she needed was a candle and water. It was soo exciting. I wish that Estonians knew more about their traditions too. Because we have a rich history. 16 of July In the morning Ufuk introduced us main points of preparation on of EVS volunteers. Thanks to his highlights we made four different booklets on mentoring, support, preparation and guideline to fill in country booklet at home. It was an intense work we did those hours. After the lunch a lady from Viljandi came to talk with us about her experience with volunteers. Their organization is working with disabled people. She told that volunteers had got a great contact with their customers and also life here hasn't been too hard for them. In the evening we had a sauna night in the real sauna. This sauna house was located in the middle of the forest and there was a lake near by. I went with Nika to lake swimming at first and then to the warm sauna. I wasn't brave enough to go swimming after sitting in the sauna. Moroever, temperature outside was so low that our wooden houses weren't too warm. Thats why I enjoyed hot environment a lot. It was amusing seeing People from Middle East testing their limits. After the sauna we played some board games. On the objective game Kristi said she is a killer, she definately is a killer in Jungle Speed. You need to take care of her nails while playing this 😄 17 of July
We took off eralier than usual. Our way led us to Maarjaküla. Billy had been there already and was familiar with directors od the place. They made a tour for us and we talked with people who live there. Inhabitans have even their own garden, they are living in families and get all support they need. Taevaskoja visit was cancelled because of the rainy weather. On our way to Tartu we discussed with our learning buddy what we have learned already. In Tartu there was organized a meeting between our organizations and potential volunteers. Many youth visited our event to gain some more information about EVS and hosting organisations. It was surprising, usually young people are modest and don't want to take in this kind of events. We made another Facebook live to promote it. Aftre that we had a free time in Tartu. Because I was the local one I had to walk with them on the city. I wasn't familiar with the town at that time, so we just walked around in the old town and found a hipster shop. Afterwards we went to bigger shopping centers. It was a good opportunity to buy gifts to your secret friend. Evening ended with pizza night in Taverna. I love this place selection of pizzas. And then we had a long bus ride back to Vardi. Luckily I was chosen to be part in an EVS partnership building activity which took place 11.07-21.07 in Vardi, Estonia. EVS is a cherished topic for me. I couldn't imagine before that my EVS experience in Bulgaria would change my life so deeply. I became more active in social and political life in my community. I am really proud that I took the risk and moved to a strange land. Now my mission is to help future volunteers in their path. That's why I participated in that mobility of youth workers, to learn new methods how to promote EVS. 11 of July Before the official start to our project I had a task to check everyone's presence before departure by bus from Tallinn. For my surprise they all were in our meeting place before me. And you know, Estonians are always earlier in the appointment, so it really was a delighted surprise for me. I think that participants at that point had already adopted the Estonian culture. At least it made my life so much easier and our journey to Kivi Turismitalu started without problems. I shared Estonian candies with everybody because it is so important to show the best part of Estonia to foreigners, our sweet factory Kalev's products are good examples. In the bus Ibrahim came to talk with me which was nice because I was sitting alone and reading a book. From that point I started to communicate with other participants more openly. When we arrived to Vardi our supporting team was already waiting for us. Actually Heleri gave us a biggest surprise during that project, she was pregnant. Obviously she was carrying a baby last time when I saw her in spring as well, but then I couldn't suspect anything. So, we had an extra participant in this project as well 😊 We were divided into rooms, my roommates were Lidia from Portugal and Nefeli from Greece. In that evening we discovered amazing nature around our house with Lidia, so many small froggies and a precipitous cat. Later we made social games to get to know each other more. It was a good start for a project. 12 of July We started another day with more name games and teamwork activities. We had to do mission impossible with lots of tasks. Even though they seemed pretty hard ones, we managed to do almost all of them. There were also task to put a lot of T-shirts and socks on you. I don't know why but I agreed to take this task. I swear that this sock task seemed impossible, but at final I handled it, 30 socks and no blood running in my veins anymore. My personal favourite task was the one when guys had to polish their nails. Vincenzo looked really fancy. We got a lot of visual materials about our daily program and project aims. Kristjan and Helen made an informative timetable for us. We made blog, reflection and feedback groups. All those groups in general helped us to develop the project itself. In the afternoon we made a poster about our organization and we introduced it to others. It was a really special project because it included so many different countries. I am pretty sure that I have never met people from Jordan or Lebanon before. Project countries were Portugal, Romania, Spain, Morocco, Jordan, Ukraine, Georgia, Greece, France, Poland, Bulgaria, Lebanon, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Italy, Tunisia and United Kingdom (Wales). I am so glad that this project gave me an opportunity to met all this people. It was a really good foundation to a project building networking. In the first evening we had already intercultural nights: Estonia, France, Egypt and Wales. I went to a local shop to buy needed products for this evening. Our way to shop was really funny, we went with bigger group and they all wanted to take pictures surrounded by Estonian nature. Because there wasn't a special road for pedestrians we had to walk on the main road. But it wasn't a problem because there wasn't too many cars. Because people had an opportunity to eat Estonian food every day I struggled what to prepare for them. But I offered some more candies, kvass, Vana Tallinn and kama. I taught them useful Estonian words and phrases and demonstrated how to dance Kaerajaan. Billy's presentation about Wales was nice, he really knows how to make fun. France sweets tasted good as always and I was positively surprised when I tasted Ibrahim's banana dessert. It was so delicious that I couldn't stop eating it. In that evening group of Polish people arrived as well. They came here by car which sounds like an insane act. 13 of July
On Thursday we had even bigger mission impossible task. We went canoeing. It was totally insane, I was scared and most of all Taline, she was totally frightened. Two more Estonians joined us. Fun fact is that I knew Uku before thanks to his blog. So, Uku and Kadri wasn't completely strangers for me. And they both were friends of Helen. On our way to the canoeing start point we passed by a village where is my summer cottage. I was so happy because this region is my second home. But back to the canoe trip. We got instructions and headed into water. Navesti river wasn't too difficult but still, for beginners, it is still a task. At first it took time to get used to how to lead that boat. And I kind of hate nature, actually people. If branches are in the river why they don't clean them. I know it sounds ridiculous when you are on the shore but you have a new perspective on the river. Next Clean Up day I probably organize an event to clean Estonian rivers 🤣 On the other hand, all those natural obstacles make the canoe trip interesting. We got stuck with Almontaser and Nika for several times but those moments make you communicate with each other more. Distance was quite long if you have no idea of time and the distance you have passed through already. It was cloudy and at some point chilliness hit us. I sang in Estonian to calm down all those Estonian fairies and other creatures who live in the forest. Everyone in my canoe contributed and fairies heard pretty multilingual performances. I don't know did it help or not, but at least we finished our journey without getting wet. Tho, water was quite deep on some points. It was such a relief to walk on the land again. It is uncomfortable to be immobile on the same position about 2 hours. We were lucky, but Billy's, Morgan's and Eugenia's canoe tipped over. They were soaking wet and even though that we didn't have direct contact with river water, nature's wish was to make everybody wet. It started raining and our way back to the bus was pretty quick. We planned to have a picnic at riverside but because of the weather we ate our wraps in the bus. Pretty rational decision and quite Estonian. Just eating without any extra activities while enjoying the nature from the window. While we were eating Youssef showed us funny videos they made during their canoe trip. It was such a pity that nobody from our canoe didn't bring a phone or a camera to capture this adventure. But no reason to be sorry actually, others got amazing shots and it is a risky business after all. After bus-picnic we headed to Soomaa wetland. Rain was even heavier and most of the people didn't want to join to this walk and talk activity we had planned. We tried to reach the observation tower. We just followed one path and hoped to see the building, but nothing. So, we turned around and walked back while enjoying Estonian wonderful summer-shower. Back at our accommodation place, we ate kringel and enjoyed hot coffee and tea. Moreover, warm sauna was waiting for us. Uhh, this sauna experience was so needed. All middle-east guys visited sauna for the first time, it is such a pleasure to introduce your culture to foreigners. I guess they kind of liked sauna. We also have another blog about our project as well. |
AuthorMy connection with Erasmus+ projects. Youth exchanges and training courses. Archives
January 2020
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