After coming home from „Basic Training for Trainers“ two events were organized to put into practice what we have learnt in Lecce and also to spread the spirit of and idea behind Erasmus+:

• „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+ !

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

Hi, I am Matthias and I will tell you about our follow-up:

The event was based on was a board-game night. We hosted the evening at Catalysts in Vienna (link), the company I (Matthias) and Manuel work at. Manuel, Pato and me were joined by many colleagues from Catalyst and young people from all over Vienna. We also give a big thanks to Catalysts for providing some snacks and drinks!

Personally, I find games to be a powerful tool for learning, teaching and integration. The rules of games determine the interactions between participants. During the game, they supersede our general societal rules of interaction – which are often divergent – and make us all speak a common language. Games are an important part of the Basic Synergy training we were part of in Cortemilia. I am happy with how we replicated our learning. 

The first game we played was Magic Maze. True to the spirit of „United We Win“ all players have to cooperate and coordinate as a team to beat the game itself. All while not communicating with each other. The game requires trust in others while demanding responsibility from every team member. I was often reminded of experiences from the youth exchange. 

We concluded the evening playing „2 rooms 1 boom“, a social deception game. Again trust, communication and seizing opportunities were the center of the game. We interrupted the game for a bit to tell our guests about Erasmus+ projects and shared some of our experiences. Some people stayed even longer and continued the evening by playing some rounds „Werewolf“.

To summarise, we had a great evening, applied and shared some of our experience and learnings with others and spread the word about Erasmus+ and wEUnite.

Yours, Magda, Manuel G., Matthias, Nina, Pato

After the youth exchange „Music Makes Feelings“ in Rijeka/Croatia (read about this project here) we were supposed to come up with some kind of follow-up, to spread the things we have learned and experienced in the project. 

As the title already suggests, this project was about music connected to feelings. This is why we decided to use social networks to spread music and share which feelings certain songs bring up. What we did was the following: we started a chain to post a favorite song and to share why this specific song is important to you. Some people have connected their songs to their first love, others to a special experience or memory, and some chose a song that makes them happy and cheerful. In any case, music makes all kind of different feelings – and this is what we wanted to show and spread.

We started our chain with the Austrian team and nominated further people to continue the trend. As a sign for our follow-up we used the hashtag #musicmakesfeelings 

As usual with such kind of online activities, not everyone feels motivated to continue this trend and share their songs and feelings, even if they were nominated to do so. But this is something we have learned from it 🙂 

It was a good experience for us to find an idea and try to make it work – we really hope that you listened to some of the shared songs and got positive vibes out of it!

Continue having good feelings with music and spread them amongst your friends 🙂

And here is the official project video in case you are curious what we did there and how we made music and feelings in Croatia MusicMakesFeelings-Video

Yours,
Manuel G., Nina, Tini, Marion, Pato, Manuel E.