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As soon as I got offered the possibility of going abroad on this programme I got excited. I had never done erasmus nor visited Romania. This was a truly great experience for me because it was like I was living back in London for my studies along with the diversity of countries I was surrounded by.
As I was doing job shadowing, I got given an opportunity of coming to Romania, and spend a couple of days in Bucharest. This allowed me to explore the city, the museums, the huge buildings, the food and of course the night life which is so present in the Old Town. After arriving at Cluj Napoca Airport the bonding activities started in a bus towards Vatra Dornei which made our arrival at the pensione Syade much better and easier. The whole focus of this program was on how to be an active civic person in a community. What roles everyone has, how and what each of us can do to support each other. We found out through communication and role plays, that our countries are very similar and we all share the same issues. However we also got to experience and understand a bit more of the 6 countries represented there not just in a political way but in more personal manner. The countries are celebrated by the event Cultural nights, which each country gets to show/present how great they really are. Everyone gets to try tradicional food and drinks as well as learning how balance it out through the tradicional dances. I found out quite a lot about myself in this short journey despite being an adult. It made me listen and trust myself, made me realise I care more about defending other peoples rights than I actually thought. Through the programme we are able to make great connections and friendships for life. Very grateful for that. Before returning home I had the chance to stay for another couple of nights in Bucharest. Allowing me to get to know Old Town like the palm of my hands. Overall this was one of the best adventures I've had in my life and I definitely recommend it. Guilherme
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“Take Action - Together Against Discrimination” project continued with a midterm meeting in Tartu. Meeting aimed to see how we have fullfilled the project objectives and what needs to be done. We set action plans for remaining jobshadow mobilities. Also, getting to know more of our partners and build collaboration for new project ideas.
On the first day, we started the day by enjoying breakfast at the hotel with the others. Then we had informal socializing at the AHHAA Science Center in Tartu. The experience we had at the museum encouraged us to seek help from each other, and therefore breaking the ice. Furthermore, we had a vegan meal, which even the meat eaters enjoyed! Later on, we headed to the Tartu University Library where we dived into our first working session where we recapped and evaluated what has been done since the project began. Since December 2021, a training course has been carried out, 3 job shadowings have been completed, 1 is on going and 4 are yet to happen. We also got a look of an another successful example of jobshadowing project. After a fruitful session, an even tastier dinner was waiting for us in a traditional Estonian Tavern. As the night was still young, informal moments continued. On the second day, we started the journey by testing digital tools, like an online escape room format, to also use them in remaining jobshadow mobilities. To understand better people we are working with we reflected about organization target groups and possible local partners. We were sharing our organisation interests to collaborate in the future. We brainstormed new project ideas together as the next Erasmus+ deadline is behind a corner. Some new partnerships were made between the partners. Before lunch we also looked up our dissemination plan to remind all the tasks of each partner. The second half of the day was focusing on creating action plans and putting together timetable for jobshadowing period. The day ended with a festive dinner to celebrate the successful collaboration and strengthen the bond between project partners. Now there is time to implement the last four job shadow mobilities. From 11.-21.02.2022 a training course about antidiscrimination took place in Väiko-Härmä village in Estonia. Snowy and icy Estonia was greeting youth workers and active youth from eight different countries. Training course objected ✩ Train youth workers to understand their own identity to discover their own prejudices and stereotypes ✩ Find solutions to cope discrimination resulting from stereotypes and prejudices in youth work ✩ Exchange good practices between participating organizations in diversity education and fight against discrimination (including hate speech online/offline) ✩ Train youth workers to be able to facilitate workshops in non-formal context and foster the use of peer to peer methodology ✩ Prepare workshop plans to be implemented on local level in participating organizations to prevent prejudice based discrimination Beside extremly icy weather conditions really particiants spent really productive 10 days together. Participants could share their experience and thoughts on safe ground. After getting into the topic they were got instructions how to develop their own workshop. All of them also got a chance to implement their own workshop with the group and gaining knowledge of being a trainer. First half of the training course focused on team building and sharing some good practises. Open discussions led to the common ground of the anti discrimination topic. Every morning started with discussion minutes with a learning buddy. It was important part for depicting learning process and it being helpful material for filling in the youthpass. During involving sessions participants gained new knowledge as well as new facts about their peers. In the evening there were reflection groups where in small groups participants could discuss how the day has passed by. Programme also included diversity nights where participants could share facts, folk dances and food from their countries. Participants own experience can be heard from the video People from 9 different countries have joined forces to “Take Action - Together Against Discrimination” for the first partner meeting of the new Erasmus+ Key Action 2 project in Estonia. Our project is funded by Erasmus+ program and will endure 18 months. It aims to raise competences and awareness of youth workers in different areas such as discrimination, hate-speech, diversity, social inclusion and so on.
We have not only discussed about topics related to discrimination and hate speech, but also shared good practices and strategies that each of the organisation uses in their countries to fight against them. Oh, have I mentioned that we also went ice skating, escaped TWO rooms and had magnificent sauna experience? On a first day, we arrived in Estonia in a snowy but wonderful day to meet the representatives of the partner organizations. We spent the whole morning together in Tallinn, getting to know each other while discovering Tallinn. We had fun in escape rooms, some of us learnt/have learned how to ice-skate and tasted some amazing typical Estonian food. Then, with full of energy we left the city and head to our meeting location. Estonian countryside, nature, calmness, snow, and silence but very passion participants. On a second day, we had a fruitful presentation about important and basic details of our project and actions both local and international ones. The working schedule for 2022 has been decided and presented by host organization. Each partner organization shared specific information regarding their context, competences, and expectations in accordance with their work. Thus, we spent 2 very intensive days together discussing and planning about next steps. In this manner, we will have 1 training course for youth workers, 9 transnational job-shadowing, and 2 evaluation meetings more beside many local activities. |
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December 2022
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