Category Archive : vienna

I like to move it, move it! Youth Exchange

This time wEUnite itself organized a project which took place in Vienna from the 15th until the 22nd of February 2018.

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

Basic Training for Trainers – our follow-ups :)

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+ !

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

United We Win – our follow-up :)

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

This week we completed the final part of the „United We Win“ Synergy Basic youth exchange and training (link). We organized our follow-up activity in Vienna in order to apply and share some of the countless things we learned in Cortemilia. 

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

Local events – our follow-ups!

As a part of the Youth Exchange “I feel good” in Rijeka, Croatia, each country team was supposed to pass the on the spirit of sports & a healthy lifestyle to their friends, families, neighbours, colleagues and as many other people in their daily surroundings as possible. As our team is spread over Austria, we had two follow-up events, on the 19th and 26th November, one in Graz and another one in Vienna.

#1 Graz

During our Youth Exchange in Rijeka we had the possibility to participate in a really cool treasure hunt that enabled us to explore the city and have fun together in a group. Nina, Konrad, and me (Marion) then thought that it would be great to implement a similar event in Graz for our follow-up.

Said and done! We decided it would be best to have 20 tasks for the participants to fulfil within three hours. The tasks were a mixture of fun-facts such as “Which international popstar went to school in Graz?” (Conchita Wurst, by the way) , exercise “How many steps lead up to Schlossberg?” (260) and specific Graz knowledge like “Find the friendly alien” (nickname of Kunsthaus museum). I think we had as much fun thinking about them as the participants did completing them.



We then gathered on Saturday 19th of November at the main square to meet the contestants and let them embark on a self-guided exploration around Graz.

Because it was also a delight for us and because we got so unlucky with the weather the first time, we then decided to do a treasure hunt 2.0 the following weekend. It was a great success not only because the weather was a lot nicer, but also because even more people showed up and wanted to explore the city. And, of course, because there was chocolate as a prize.

Organising an event like this and especially thinking about tasks for participants let us get to know our own city better. We worked as a team and everyone contributed something and had good ideas, so we learned new interesting things about Graz ourselves.


#2 Vienna

The team in Vienna (Alex, Bartek, Manuel) organized a Football Match in the Westside Soccer Arena, on 26th October 2016 at 10:30 am, for their friends and friends of friends to spend some good and active time together. There have been fourteen people who played football in two teams for 1.5 hours. Some of the participants were professional players, whereas others were just amateurs (and sometimes even afraid of the ball); so we had a huge variety of players which was no problem at all, but rather beneficial as we could learn a lot from each other. The primary goal was not to win, it was to be active, have fun and enjoy time with people that share the passion for football. And those goals were definitely achieved!

See them in action:


Thank you very much for having all of you as participants and stay active & healthy! 🙂

Yours, Marion and Manuel

Bartek & Alex K.

Hey, my name is Bartek and I’m 22 years old. I’m studying Slavic Languages at the

University of Vienna and next semester I should (hopefully) finish my Bachelor. My passions are reading, watching movies (above all fantasy genre) and mountainbiking. There is nothing better than being in the mountains, breathing the fresh air and feeling free of all things. Just me and nature.

What do I like about youth projects?
The youth exchange in Croatia was my first experience in that kind of stuff, so I was quite curious how it will be like. And I have to say it’s totally worth it. Meeting new fantastic people from many different countries,  learing new things and having much fun are just a few benefits you get from it. I highly recommend it to everyone who likes working in teams and want to learn new ways of non-school teaching.
What have I experienced by taking part in YPs?
I met many folks with whom I want to stay in contact. Also how to motivate myself and how to help people in different situations in their lives.
Why am I part of wEUnite? / Who told me about it ?
A good friend of mine(she’s even one of the founders, how fancy :P) told me about these projects and I immediatly wanted to participate in it. So I did and and will try to participate in many other projects like this.






My Name is Alex, I’m 24 years old and I life in Vienna. At the moment I study primary

education but I hope that I will finish next year. I really love sports, I play soccer, workout at the gym and normally I go by bycyle to university and work. I like trains a lot, sports (as I said), history, Poland and travelling. Next to my studies I work, and I am also quite an active person.

What do I like about youth projects?
I really like the aspect of cultural exchanges because you can learn a lot and I could also practice my foreign language skills during the project I’ve been to. And the best part is that you meet a lot of new people there. 

What have I experienced by taking part in YPs?
Some weeks ago, in Croatia, it was my first time on a youth project and I think I learned a lot. I thought that I know a lot about sports and fitness but I really learned many new things.
I also enjoyed the group work and the „going out of the comfort zone“  part a lot.

Why am I part of wEUnite? / Who told me about it ?
Nina (one of the founders) told me about the Youth Exchange, and I was interested, went there and now I am here 😉