Hungarian follow-up project

Name: Cultures in Action (Youth Exchange)

Who is going to do it?

Host country: Hungary, Szentes

Partner countries: Estonia, Poland, Spain, Netherlands, Lithuania

4-5 participant / country

age between 17-21

Target group:

Highschool leavers, university students. Who is interested and opened to language differences (etimology, linguistics) and various types of communication (oral, gesture, body language) between countries. (+differences in art expressions)

Duration and beginning date:

9 days, 2012. szeptember 1-9.

Main project topics:

Cultural awareness, similarities and differences between communication customs. Theoretical and practical background of speech and body language. How can you create message and effectively deliver it?

Expected results:

Better communication skills, confidence of delivery public speech in English, skill of negotiating, tolerance towards other cultures, gain practical examplesm contacts.

Project level

International, Youth Exchange in Hungary

Partners

Estonia, Poland, Italy, Netherlands, Lithuania

Additiona information:

Different experts: advertisor expert, negotiator,

University teachers, drama teacher,

Lecsó (food festival) @ Szentes, host country demonstration (trip to Szeged), challenge trip on the River Tisza.

This is a picture of our team at the Lecsó(ratatouille) festival.

Visit at the Otepää municipality

On 19.04.2011 our team consisted of Adriana, Kuba and Hakki. We went to the Otepää municipality to present there the Youth in Action programme. First we had one hour to rehearse our presentation and videos and to check whether all the technical stuff is working. Then came 11.00 AM and all the local representatives – around seven people, entered the room. We welcomed them and introduced ourselves shortly. Then we asked them to do the same and also to write down their names and job titles; this way we knew who were they. We also asked them to explain us what they do for the local youth; we learnt that they have a youth center and that they do different types of youth work. Then we told them how the presentation will go – first we will make an overview of YiA, then we will give examples and then we will try to generate ideas together with them. Our goal was to use the presentation as a trigger for a discussion about what projects can be done for the local youth.

We spoke about each of the five YiA subprograms/actions; our focus was mainly on Youth Democracy, Youth Seminars and Youth Initiatives but we covered all of them by giving all the needed general information. Then we asked them if they have any questions about each of the subprograms and provided them with the answers they needed. Our presentation was quite interactive so when we spoke about the benefits from YiA for both the youth and the municipality we asked them to talk about it first and only afterwards we laid out our vision on the topic. Then came the time to discuss actual project ideas and left the municipality officials to discuss the topic. In the end, they wrote down their project ideas and we also shared with them our project ideas.

English language was an obstacle to some of them but this was not a problem because the deputy mayor was quite helpful and did the translation for us whenever needed. It is interesting to mention that the mayor also came to our presentation. This was a very helpful experience for both parties – us and the municipality officials because it broadened our horizons.

Prezi about the EVS and Youth Initiatives

untitled nr1 on Prezi

Otepää Gymnasium:) INFO DAY

2011.04.19.


Our group (Diana, Mse and Margus) was the first information provider team in the Otepää Gymnaisium. The informational event took place in the dining room full with Estonian students (age: 13-18).

OUR STAFF : 1 computer, 1 poster, brochures and the motivated information officers (us)

At 11 am there were already 60 students having lunch in the room so it started to seem a hard task to reach all of them.

11.30: The event started, we seperated and started to talk to the students to motivate and inspire them towards youth in actions... (we presented them mainly the youth exchanges, EVS and youth initiatives).

Our attitude and kindness were our weapons :P and we asked questions such as:

-Do you like traveling? Would you like your travels to be supported by the European Union?
-What are your hobbies?
-Are you interested in traveling and having fun with other nation's students?;)):)

Their answers:

-Yes.
-Definitely.
-Maybe.
-Maybe, if you drink with me a coffee.



Even if they could not talk fluently in English, they tried to communicate with us, and we always asked for feedback.

-Do you know what Youth in Action means?
-Is it understandabe?
-Pleace, ask, if something is not clear. ( and ACTUALLY they did), so everything went well, and the whole event had a great athmosphere. We laughed a lot with the students, and shared our own experiences about our project.

How to get their interests (GIRLS, BOYS) key words:

Girls:

-nature
-travel
-culture
-fun

Boys:
-sports
-travel
-girls
-fun

12:25: The informational event ended and we were all in a good mood because the students have learnt about all the great possibilities with the YiA programme and we completed our mission.

BÁBye!!!

Diana , Margus, Ms

Quality not quantity

Hey, this is Jukka, Bea and Sarunas:)
We tried our best to prepare in the night for the following mission in the Korp! Vironia (Tartu)
We were supposed to speak to unemployed youth and university students in a sort of informational seminar placing emphasis on social responsibility and volunteering. When we arrived to the faternity house which was seriously awesome (with swords and pool tables!), we set up the projector, got mentally prepared for the challenge and waited for the flood of people.12:30 .... nothing...
12:36 .... Riho starts hearing voices....
12:41 .... Riho returns with no one.. :(
12:55 .... Riho starts hearingvoices AGAIN... but this time he came back with a girl. (yupííííí)

After we introduced ourselves, we started a presentation. We asked what had she heard about Youth in Action, and she had already heard a lot about it and was especially interested in EVS, how to apply, what are the requirements, what it is exactly and financing. We were happy to help her understand the system, and explain the opportunities available with EVS. We even worked with the EVS database to find her a place for volunteering in various countries!
Since we didn't feel satisfied sharing what we have learned with just one person, we headed down to the University of Tartu, where we talked to various young people and told them about their opportunities and were very pleased with the results. Most people talked very good english and had already heard about Youth in Action, but were interested in deepening their understanding.When we were out of booklets and handouts, we decided to eat something pretty delicious at a kebab place Riho mentioned. How we can get back to Otepaa? Ohh, yes, we have to reach the bus!!! So we were running to the station and jump on it. The way back was sleepy and silent after the big challenging day.

Kind regards,
Sarunas, Jukka, Bea.

Some Words from all Participants of "I Share I Care"

We had a rough day in Otepaa, Tartu and Valga to overcome some challenges, which are to introduce YiA programme to different target gruops including desicion makers in the municipality, students fro different schools at different levels.

And today, we were assigned new tasks by our instructors. We were supposed to convey a project idea by only using clothes and accecories on them. No speaking, no writing, only visual demonstration (that made it quite challenging). But we made it, we were able to express our ideas to our friends.

We had a really fertile day as we presented our future project ideas on different topics and places. Among the ideas, theater as a tool of presentation of YiA, getting together, YiA in universities, 1.1 in Italy, 1.1 on diversity, sexual education.......

We have a video of participants saying few words about our project:

Thanks to:

• Magic Margus, Happy Heleri, Kind Katja, Crazy Katrin and Rocky Riho from Estonia,
• Beata Bright and Kuba Creative from Poland,
• Bea Bella and Maria Marvellous from Spain,
• Super Salvo and Very Vale from Italy,
• Klara Cool and Gigulo Ziva from Slovenia,
• Dimitir Driving, Dreaming Diana and Amore Adriana from Bulgaria,
• Larisa Lovely and Alina Amazing from Romania,
• Hakkı Huge and Mustafa Magic from Turkey,
• Marius Masterfull and Shining Sarunas from Lithuania,
• Jammy Jukka and Everlasting Emese from Hungary.

for participating in the project "I Share, I Care" in Estonia.

Buen vıaje!!! Srečno pot!!!

Gero kelıo!! Buon vıaggıo!!!

Prıat no patuvane!!! Head reısı!!!

Udanej podrózy!!! Jò utat!!!

güzel bir yolculuk!!! călătorie plăcută!!!

HAVE A NICE TRIP!!!!

By Bea and Hakkı.

Don't worry, be happy!

Today was for

Us a day in

Estonian

Schools

Describing

Actions for

Y outh ;)

In the morning....in the MORNING when i wake up and i feel allright, ya right :) so some of us were a bit nervous and exited, cos the »D« day was here. To get rid of the fearness we were singing this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bNE-5TVAmg So after the breakfast we were in hurry to go to schools and other institutes to present what Youth in action is. It really was nice experience to see new faces full of exitness and willing of knowledge.

The nervousness suddendly went away when step on the stage and saw the bright eyes smiling at us. More opinions about today's experience will be posted later by different presentation groups.

After the main challange we finally got some food – pizza, again :) and then we had a short walk through the forest going to a spa in the middle of nowhere :) It was time for relaxation as you can see on the pics and there was also a voting who wants to spend more time in the spa.

In the evening , ACTUALLY, we had a feedback from ACTUALLY today's presentation and we ACTUALLY figured out that we ACTUALLY did a great job.

See you later alligator :P

Maite, Mustafa and Klara :)

Puuuuhaaaajarveeeee :)

Primary school. Youngsters from the age 14 to 16. Alone with us. A big challenge. At first they were a little bit shy but soon they realised that we're not teachers and we're like them, just a little bit older :). So after our introduction we decided break the ice with a game called: princess-dragon-samurai. What is going on? Why did we splited in two groups? Didn't we came here to get some informations and not playing games? ....but i'm actually liking this kind of way...it's funny and new to me :) ...

»Let's make a circle« is a sentence that is heared 100 times per day :) So we wanted to know what do this kids do in their freetime and if they like to travel or meet new friends and they became really interesed in :)

Then we had to do a theorethical part with ppt presentation and explain what YiA is :) For not being bored we decided to show a short movie about our previous youth programms which we'd participated. And the kids were laughing all the time :) yaaay :)

So why shouldn't we play another game, for example Kataflau :) There were laughing even more :) and let's have some Harry Potter's energizers.

»What did you learned today?« was the question from our side. We wanted to know if we done a good job. »One word« from each student which describes our workshops. At the end they happly took all the info brochures and cards.

Greetings from Larisa, Salvo and Klara

Preparing presentation of presentation

18.04.2011.

8:36 - Oh, no! The day's starting :)
8.56 - Oh, no! Riho is knocking on my door... :(
9.00 - Oh, no no no! Cold water in the shower... :(
9.30 - Oh! Others are still sleeping... ?!?!

You know people say: „ Your morning will reflect your whole day …..” It did:)

10.00 – Lord “miserable” Voldemort was trying to catch the Harry “pathetic” Potter. The challenge was hard, because the “pitiable” “bushes” were too strong, and the fat Harries couldn’t fit in. Even if the movements of the feet were very rapid, they seemed to “run” with an average of speed of 1 Km/year. Margus had a fancy about being Voldemort, so he bought the licence to be always the “catcher”. He has fallen in love with the character.. anyway in the other hand of the “theatre” Super Sicilian Salvatore “stood always in my(Mse’s) bush” (see translation in hungarian) and it was very annoying :D:D:D

10.15 – Movietime!  The theme of the movies were about Youth in Action  and there was one was about one estonian guy called IMRE, who went to Spain to do his EVS. After that we found out some ways to make information more attractive. 

11.30 – We started to work on our presentations because tomorrow is going to be THE  INFO DAY (we hope)

Everyone was very concentrated on his own work, like you see Salvo below!

13:00 - LUNCH TIME!!!!!!!!!

The lunch was very very very normal.. potatoes, pork, bread, but the sauce I don't like.... we really missed the water with CUCUMBER.14:00 Presentation making

15:00 Presentation making...

16:00 Presentation making..........................?!?!?!?! :)

17:00 - Actually, it was the time to present our presentations... 

18.00 – Dinner!.... good breaded meat, unmissable ( if there is such word like this) potatoes and the evil sauce again and again and again...

19.00 –  Estonian youth workers and youth leaders arrived to know more about our associations and our experience in YiA programme. We shared our experiences and spent some good time.

We had a nice discussion in groups in the company of different types of cheese and delicious wines. (One of the was HUNGARIAN ;))

22.17 – group picture

22.00:Ohh...  Time is seems to go backwards.... :D:D:D:

23:00 Some of the Estonian guests left and some of them are still enjoying our magnificent company!!!!

23:10 we are still writing and it’s getting funny to select the right picture for the bloggggggg.

24:00 GOODBYE.

Written MSE (Ungheria) , AND SALVO THE ....(....)

Zombies in Tartu

After the Estonian night when we had a very exciting quiz game it was difficult to start the new day. Some of the people were missing and as we noticed they were stuck in Zombieland. Those creatures were pale, with red eyes and they were crawling all over the dining room in search of a nice spot to lay down their shallow bodies.

How can you make zombies take human shape?

Of course, with energetic Estonian dances! Those active moves were indeed helpful and all the sleeping zombies took their place in the team circle as normal human beings. We were all ready to continue our weekly actions and training work.

Today´s topic was about public speaking and motivating people. Everybody has a fear of speaking in front of people and we pointed out the main problems and solutions of speaking in public. Then we were split in several groups to make presentations on ways of approaching and motivating different group targets. By brainstorming we made a simple plan of basic steps on group/individual motivation. We also wrote down the do´s and don´ts of how to effectively motivate people.

We learnt how to engage people, catch their attention and make them more active about citizenship, community work and influencing decision-makers.

The later afternoon was devoted to a Tartu city trip. Here we had some short guided tour and later – some free time to explore the cozy shops for lovely souvenir gifts. The wonderful afternoon ran so fast that we even didn’t notice when we ended up in the highest pub in the world. We don’t know if it is the highest but the beer glasses were the biggest.

In the end, almost at midnight, hopelessly tired we again returned to the feeling of being zombies.

Creature adventures, to be continued…

Special Chart of Greetings

„Special Chart of Greetings”

Once upon a time there was a group of people staying in Vidrike. It was an unusual morning when they came up with an idea of sharing their national expressions, so they created a special Chart of Greetings.

After that, they decided to prepare a chronic for future generation, in order to share their experience on virgin teritory of Otepaa.

So...going back to reality- they made a blog. They also learn how to survive in the modern world and how important it is to read behind the lines ( actually read lines). They learned that the age is not an impediment when people who care want to share.

But why so serious?.....let's have some fun and draw some ducks and bears....

Btw, questions:

Open

Closed

Why do you like to study or being abroad? What opportunities for involving youth people do you see? What do you think you mean youth in action? What do you want to change in your life? What are you doing in your free time? What are your expectations and priorities? What would you like to change in your school /authority?

Would you like to study or being abroad? Would you like to make your life more interesting? Is it there anything that you would like to change? Have you ever heard about this program? Do you want to be more active in the social life through the youth in action program? Do you want to meet people from different countries? Do you want to meet friends and have fun? Do you know about YiA and young initiatives? Are you prepared to have the best experience in your life? Do you know the benefits of YiA program? Would you like to learn for European Voluntary Service? Do you want to go more deeply in democracy world?

Greetings from Beata & Alina!

Youth in Action day

Today's day started with a little sleepyness after the diversity night. But since we have energizers and really good spirit among the group, everything went well. First thing to do was to find out the differences between formal, non-formal and informal learning. Do you know the differences? No? We know now and we suggest you to come to one of the Youth in Action program to find it out by yourself :). Until then, we may tell you that as long as you’re staying in school and listen to your teachers it’s formal learning, in breaks when you talk to your fellows about work you did during lessons would be informal learning and non-formal learning you would experience in different projects.

Today’s schedule of our project I share I care, was based on non-formal learning about YiA program. We were divided into groups of three participants and each group would have a task to explain others about actions possible in the YiA program. To find everything about it by yourself, follow this link.

The workshop we had went great, groups presented the actions very clearly and there would be some nice discussion and debates on different projects in which participants were already involved in. Some of us have some experience from before, but not much. Some participants don’t have any previous experiences but there are also some, who have a lot of projects behind and they shared their knowledge with the rest of us.

In the afternoon was time for a meeting café. Who do you think joined us? 6 YiA experts with lots of experiences to share with us!!! Most of us, decided to do European Volunteer Services once in our life. You should check it too! You may also go in different continents to practice and to take some time between your studies. It’s mostly free of charge, YiA would provide you transportation, accommodation, beverages and you would get some pocket money as well. Seems cool, right?

Now it’s time to leave, we have to get ourselves ready to eat dinner in town and go out partying after words. YiA program is WAITING 4 YOU!

Only for you from the middle of no where,

Larisa and Živa

Second day - second part :)

Actually we made this post in the SIESTA, which is a good initiative, but we would appreciate the spanish style more - with palm trees and sunbathing :)

The second part of the day began with becoming someone else, in this case we acted like we were from 3 different tribes: Smilia, Coldonia and Turtelia!

They had very different customs and cultural behaviour, e.g: Coldonians were cold and sexually active, Smilians were very positive and saying YES all of the time, Turtelians were very emotional and continuously expressing their feelings.

After all, we discussed stereotypes and misjudgements of different cultures can be avoided by tolerance, respect and understanding each other in love and in peace.

Then we became travellers in a train and had to choose people we will be travelling with. The people were very different like skinheads and underage drug addicts and even a priest, which caused a lot of discussions among the groups. In the end we had to compromise and eat. It was hard, there was spaggeti and white sauce cream (suspicious?)..

APPRECIATING DIVERSITY!

In the evening we had the intercultural presentations and food tasting. You wouldn't believe how many types of vodka shown up on the different tables. But our new friends Cujka, Palinka and Wisniowka got along well and we had loads of fun again... :)

Dancing queens and kings conquered the dancefloor but by the next morning everybody was humbled again. But thats a story for somebody else to write... (Hitchcock)

Thanks for your kind attention still,

Jukka, Kuba, Sarunas!

Koks means two... (Day 2 ;)

After the exhausting "sauna" party.. we succeeded to wake up and be present at the Breakfast! How did we start the day?

AWESOME!!! sausage first, then the whole table... of course with healthy Estonian ingredients, so we could manage the game ?Cataflau?

Which is a traditional Italian Sex-Party-(Drugs?)- Game where you sing and grab each other's arms. So refreshed and energized we could proceed to the Mission Impossible..

In this game the whole group had to complete ten tasks in 40 minutes. Is it really impossible??

We experienced that YES. We learnt that you need a leader or supervisor to coordinate among the borders of time and space.

The task were aimed at making us understand the importance of teamwork and the precise coordination of the workflow within each subgroup.

SAILORS MOON

8 competences? What this means to you? We'll see!

Welcome on board, lets count til 5 in Estonian, and here we begin the incredible journey to the magical islands of the 8 skills.

Are they knowledge, attitude or maybe resources? Guess what??

in the butt.. khmm....

We had a chance to learn common expressions our native languages, discuss different social and civic models, solve mathematical puzzles and exchange ideas for future actions.

To sum it up, we were really hungry at the end - hungry for knowledge :) and we are ready for more!

Made by Jukka, Sharunas, Kuba:)

First Day - the shining day!

*(post will be updated soon with pictures & extra information!)

Hello the ones who Share & Care, hello people of Vidrike, hello Otepäe, hello EU, hello World !!!

The startup of the project was amazing - just like we expected and even more!
Before we will give you short overview of our first day we would like to thank our wonderful positive minded vigorous participants from 10 countries, excellent organizers and our great host Vidrike Puhkemaja with delicious foods and outstanding personal.

So, let's see how the day started, what we learn, how we learned and how we startup the next day - full of mind expanding games and assignments. There is no ending of days for us as it's all one continues learning experience with not fixed endings!

We kicked the day off with some fun energizers and proceed to the innovative name games that help us to break the ice in really first day. There is reason why these games are called icebreakers. It's essential to have effective icebreakers so project can startup with trustful and harmonized atmosphere - like we have!
Organizers proceed with planned daily agenda - introduction of the project, presentation of training goals and set up some common collective regulations/house rules to prevent any accidental misunderstandings in days to come.

After coffee/tea break we go more in to introducing the participants and take deeper look in to our Expectations, Motivation and Obstacles that one might have. Everyone wrote on slipper what are their main hopes and concerns/fears for the project. It It will also give good overview to everyone what are group/individual concerns and if there is anything one can help with - they can. Hopefully most of the Obstacles or fears will be dissolved with in first days, with so positive and self supporting group we cant see reason it not to become true! :)

Yammy!
After tasty lunch break - emphasis on 'tasty' as the ... really know how to please their quests with healthy and well served tasty kitchen we started to prepare to the trip to Otepää.

Armastus käib kõhu kaudu!

("The way to the Love is via the stomach" / "Love Viva La stomach" )






Discovering the Otepäe!
Little about Otepäe:
Otepäe for a small city as it is (2000+ lovely inhabitants) has many attractions for different taste but as we all learned from locals it's known most for an
annual FIS Cross-Country World Cup and as a great place for vacation if one appreciates the taste of pure nature and it is near by one of the Estonia most beautiful, legend rich lakes Pühajärve (Holy Lake). Otepää is also not to far from the Estonia highest hill - Great Egg Mountain.

But let's see now, how our assignment went!
Around 2:30 we all went to discover one of the Estonia pearls Otepäe. In groups of 4 people we had some 20, easy and fun tasks to fallow . From one side, it was great opportunity for us to get to know local people and city history. From other side we was glad to share information about our project and introduce Youth in Action program to youth. We was also getting a lot of info about local people's option and concerns about EU. In general, people in Otepääe was open-minded and show warm feelings for our project and for the EU programs like that, specially the younger generation as the older ones had some concerns about EU politics. Of-course there was sometimes some small difficulties to explain all the people about or doings as for 5 groups we had only one person who was able to understand Estonia but this was one of the points of the task - try to communicate with other cultures in EU.

... more details coming soon!

Then we got back to to Vidrike guest house and fallow up to the day.


* Sauna Party in Vidrike Sauna

The day ended with sauna party - sauna vas just awasame.. .and party, well, pictures talk more then words:

MEETING LOCALS IN ÖTEPÄÄ

Otepää in our eyes...

We arrived to Otepaa centre and received the questions which seemed to be difficult at the first time. We started ,,hunting” for people to interrogate. And what have we found out?

We have met: Kevin, Astrid, Kerle,Ene, Maime Rose, Sille, Ranek, Nari, Mirjam and Merle who answered our questions.

Hmm…condoms? For their safety, we choose the prices for Durex: 2,55 euros.

From the answers we could draw a picture of 150 years old of Otepaa with the ,,king” Andres Visnapuu and 2 spas nearby ( Bernhard Spa & Puhajarv Spa). BTW, the Puhajarv (Holy Lake)

is a legendary Estonian lake. Otepaa is famous for FIS Cross-Country World Cup event and for skiing resort. Lot of people come here and enjoy the nature.

They have two schools in Otepaa where the famous skiers – Jaak Mae, Andrus Verbalu - attended to. These famous people live in Otepaa on Kalda Street, Hundisoo Street. In the Otepaa Gumnaasium are studying approximately 700 students. In the other Otepaa Sport Internat School has been attended by many legendary Estonian sport figures.

The older people weren`t so enthusiastic joining EU but theyounger generation could appreciate the positive side. They said that the prices were increased before they change the currency so it was not significant for them.

Where we can go out? To Come Back (Friday & Saturday) we can for free before midnight and after with 6 euro, we can also go to Help (for youngsters) with 7 euro which is ironic because it isplaced next to Strip Club were we can see the girls with 10 euro.

We want to go to the beach too! But the last beach party took place in 2001 – 2002. So sad! :(

I like both shops from Otepaa! We have bought some food there

and after this we found out that the first bus to Tartu leaves at 5:25 in the morning.

Now we can show you our crazy time in Otepaa! So much funnn!!!

Kisses from Larisa, Beata, Jukka and Margus!