The description of the project doesn’t sound like an experience we are living everyday. Exciting and a bit worrying at the same time.

Like a blind dance: What will expect us in Cortemilia

Nevertheless or just because of that 25 young people from Croatia, Italy, Romania and Austria gathered in beautiful Cortemilia (Italy) and took part in this Erasmus+ project. The Youth Exchange took place from 18th to 26th of April and was organized by Associazone Vagamondo and their partner organisations.

Ready to be disconnected? Locking up our technical devices

The week turned out to be full of learning, low moments, reflection, sharings, challenges, singing, dancing, conversations, creativity, enjoying the beautiful venue, tasty food, the smell of biscotti di nocciola (hazelnut cookies), massages, laughing and reactivating our 5 senses. But most of all it was full of magical moments.

The “real” social network

During this project we created a “real” social network and enjoyed the positive impact it had on our wellbeing. Despite of the fact that in the beginning a lot of us were struggling with locking up their technical devices, most of us were almost sad when we got the technologies back at the end of the week. Luckily, we created a great a support system in order to stick to our goals and to implement what we have learned in our daily lives.

During our Youth Exchange in Vienna we experienced what a great impact sports and movement and spending time with others had on our wellbeing. So, we (Marion and Elisa) decided to spread the energy we gained from that project. We created an event on Facebook and invited everybody to a treasure hunt with the motto “Be a better explorer than Dora”. The treasure hunt aimed to combine being active, exploring the city of Graz, having fun together and of course making Erasmus+ projects more visible in our surroundings.

We gathered on Saturday 25th of March at the main square. In order for potential participants to recognise us and to gain attention among other people, we had poster of Dora with us. We didn’t even have to wait for a minute and we had a group of people around us who couldn’t wait to start the treasure hunt. We formed smaller groups to enable competition for a very special prize.

Yours Marion & Elisa

„HOW THE HELL DOES MY FRIEND TRAVEL SO MUCH?“

Coming back from the youth exchange in Vienna, we knew that we should think of a follow-up activity that has to do with sports -like the youth exchange- and should promote Erasmus+. As Marion and Elisa already focused on the moving part, Martin and me (Nina) decided to reach out and get people to know about Erasmus+ and all its great opportunities.

While brainstorming how to best do this, we agreed together with the whole Austrian team, that the fact that we all travel quite a lot by participating in projects, we should definitely use it for a catchy title. Said, done. On 29th of March we implemented our little workshop on Erasmus+ in Logo Youth center in Graz.

What we did not think through was that there are already Easter holidays… which is why we ended up being a small – but very productive – group of people. (as you can see – working hard!)
While it rained outside we got to know each other, exchanged our experience in the world of E+ and thought about why it is so hard to get people to try out something new.

After lots of snacks, laughs and funny stories we came up with the idea to try to make a workshop in some schools. There we could explain the ideas behind E+ and reach students plus teachers (who need to excuse their missing classes later
on…)

Although our workshop did not go as planned, as everybody knew lots about E+ already, we managed to quickly change our plans and work with what is there. It has been a great afternoon and we are looking forward to putting our idea into action!

Yours Nina & Martin

The main topic due to the title „I like to move it, move it“, was the impact of sports in personal daily life. A perfect fitting number of 25 participants from five countries (group of five per country) attended in the project. Besides of Austria with some German influence, also Poland, Italy, Lithuania and Estonia were on board.

Already before we met each other in person, a Facebook group was created along with assignments to get to know the other participants and an idea about the project as well as receiving information about the schedule and other essential stuff.

Move it, move.
I am going to start with our daily sport activities which began every mornging at 10:00 am after breakfast. Each day had another topic and they were built on each other. (01) The first day we did sports without movement and by ourselves. Jumping, stretching and sweating, all together but still alone. (02) The following day was about others and we had to choose a partner with whom we performed the given tasks. It was a lot of fun and together the exercises didn’t feel that hard. (03) The third day was about music. Up to now our sports activities were just accompanied by cheering and moaning, but that day our DJ (Antonio) provided good sounds. (04) On this day we were separated into five groups and had to fulfil several competitions – let the games begin. (05) Despite the forecast (snow and freezingly cold) we had a great walk to the city centre, like schoolkids divided into teams of two. Then we got an intense topic, like talking about love or what makes one happy/sad and after five minutes we had to switch partners. Thereby we again got to know other people better and we had great and meaningful conversations. (06) Again divided into groups we did a circle training with 6 stations. I cannot tell you how long three minutes can feel and how exhausting they can be. Just give it a try 😉 (07) The last day of the project was quite intense. Already before breakfast there were rumours about a hard workout. One and a half our later everyone broke down on the floor. Satisfied and filled with pure happiness. We all did a good job.

    

Hey buddy, hey what’s up.
On the very first day we had to choose a buddy who was from now on always by our side to support and help one another. During the program every participant set a personal goal and without my buddy I am not sure if I would have succeeded, but like that I did! I appreciated this concept very much and within days we became closer and closer. Additionally, there were five reflexion groups, each led by a team member, to talk about the daily experiences, problems and requests.

Yes, we can, yes I can!
I do not have enough time, I cannot do this, I am not good enough, et cetera…. There are so many excuses why we are hiding our light under a bushel. Throughout several aspects we learned to identify our excuses which stop us from doing what we want, reaching our goals and how to deal with them or even end them. Analysing your habits and excuses was quite intense and I will keep up doing it regularly and throwing them away. We are better than this. We can do anything we want. Just believe in you and put effort into reaching your dreams. 

Let’s just kill someone and grab a beer!
During our free-time we gathered together and played the well-known mafia game in the children area of the hostel lobby, went to grab some beers in a cozy bar around the corner, had funny as well as deep conversations, awesome live-music in the staircase and so much more. All in all, these intense days together brought a strong bondage in our group and to say goodbye at day 8 ways really hard. I cannot mention everything we did or describe the feeling you are going to have in such a project, or the impact it will have on you. Just one thing: DO IT, you will love it!

Yours, Anna

my name is Anna. I’m 25 years old, originally from Germany but for now I’m studying and living in Austria, Graz. Graz is an amazing city by the way, if you are around this area, don’t hesitate and go for a short visit. I’m always on the run, searching for new and interesting things to explore, meeting friends or just enjoying life as much as possible. I think I’m too young to settle down somewhere yet. Life is offering so much more.

What do I like about youth Projects?
I like the diversity of people gathering together and becoming a great team and friends in such a short period of time. I love talking to people from other cultures and with backgrounds to get another perspective about any possible topic. Our project’s team also included some activites which provided the possibility of deep and serious conversations which I highly appreciated. Also the meet-ups during the day or in the evening to get to know each other more and have fun besides of the duty programm were a blast.

What have I experienced by taking part in youth projects?
The „I like to move it, move it!“ project was the first one I attended and since I didn’t know what to expect aside from doing a lot of sports due to the topic, I was absolutely statisfied and happy with the awesome program. Besides the sport activities we learned a lot about self-development and how to improve our effectivenss in daily lives. For me, this was exactly the right moment, before going to start my master thesis now. I took a lot out of this project and I’m absolutley glad that I had the opportunity and luck to participate in it.

Why am I part of wEUnite and who told me about it?
I’ve heard about wEUnite from a friend which I got to know because of my activities in ESN, which already shows that I’m generally interested in meeting and being with international people from all over the world. She shared this project on her facebook timeline and even if my scedule in February was quite full I wanted to go there and take part in such a great project. Also the topic seemed as created for me since I like doing sports very much but recently had been too busy to do it.

• „Happy thoughts! Workshop on happiness in daily life“ by Elisa and Nina, in Graz
• „High Performance Workshop: Gain Focus“ by Manuel, in Vienna

Happy thoughts!

On the 19th October both of us, Elisa and Nina, implemented our workshop under the title „Happy thoughts! Positiv denken im Alltag“ (=think positively on daily basis) in Graz. The workshop aimed to give an understanding how positive thinking can change the daily life and to provide tools which help to “get caught” in an upward spiral. The participants were encouraged to brainstorm about what makes them happy and what keeps them in positive mood and to share it with other people. With the help of visualization the participants got an idea of the upward and downward spiral. Moreover they got an theoretical input on “the happy chemicals” oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin and endorphin. It was explained what they are needed for and what provokes their production in the body. Afterwards the participants could experience some easy tools which can boost their mood in daily life. In the end it was showed how they can have an impact on themselves but also on the people around them and in their society.

In order to have this workshop take place we needed participants to join our event. We did not have much time actually as we were pretty spontaneous with the idea and date which is why we were more than happy to have a local youth center (Logo Jugendzentrum Graz) as support. In order to inform people about our event and invite them we created an open event on Facebook and told everyone we knew about it. Both of us met a week before to plan the programme of the workshop session, to prepare the materials needed and to distribute further planning and responsibilities. On the day of the workshop we met early to go through the schedule again, talk last things through and to prepare our location. We were a bit nervous before our workshop as none of the participants had experience with non-formal learning before – but everything worked out amazingly well! Everybody participated fully 🙂 We got lovely feedback right after the session but also some days later – and we definitely got our participants to be curious about Erasmus+ !

Selfie in the end! 

High Performance Workshop: Gain Focus

… „Use Meditation, master Transitions and take Power-Breaks to direct your spotlight!“. This was the title of my (Manuel’s) workshop, I (Manuel) that took place on 21st of November 2017 in the Catalysts office in Vienna. For this workshop I used formal and non-formal learning methods to give the participants information as well as hands-on practice on different methods and techniques to keep their focus on their doings during the day. 13 participants joined my workshop to reach their next level. The workshop took around 1h 15 min and started with an introduction of myself, why I chose this topic and a little energizer to activate the body and the mind of the participants, followed by the three topics to gain focus: Meditation 101, Master Transitions and Power-Breaks. Check out the slides here.

In general, I also talked about my experiences from the past (on how to improve myself and become a High Performer), why I chose the topic (I found lot of great information on my journey that helped me a lot, and I want to share it with others, such that they can improve their life too) and why I do this now (I did some trainings (e.g. Basic Training for Trainers) and I feel ready to do this kind of things and also the necessity to share the things I know… I want to make a transition from being a student to becoming a teacher).

I got a lot of great feedback from the participants and from some already know, that they used some methods I taught, to improve their performance and life. Big thanks to all participants for the active involvement in my workshop. I enjoyed it a lot! If you want to have more background information about my workshop and tips&tricks, read the Behind the Scenes here!

– Elisa, Manuel, Nina