ERASMUS+, Key Action1: traning course
Venue: Paralimni, Cyprus
National team: APV: Matouš Jarolímek, TC: Ivana Mančíková, Andrius Toločka, Daniel Giera
Training course dates: 18—25 February 2023
Please read the APV info-pack & TC info-pack.
Hosting organisation: NECI Cyprus
Project report:
In the early morning of 18th of February I met our Czech team in Vienna airport. As always in such projects everything is unpredictable. It is exciting and a little bit scary at the same time. We were lucky about well-planned travel and had a nice day in Larnaca. In the evening finally we met other participants and trainers. This training course was interesting to me since I read the infopack, and it was so nice that the first day of it justified my expectations. We had a nice introductory meeting, a tasty dinner and a walk on the seaside just on the first evening.
The activities of the training course were well-organized, dynamic and involving but at the same time we had freedom. Probably no one feels that trainers pushed us to participate if we feel a lack of interest in some session or topic. This balance between opportunity to be free and productive work was something special. Not every training course has such a nice mental atmosphere. The sessions were quite diverse in topics and activities. We had many energizers which also played important role in non-formal learning process. Some theoretical sessions about youth pass and competences gave us a deeper understanding about the background of inclusive participation in the learning – teaching process. Practical tasks gave us the opportunity to work in teams and explore each other’s personalities, way of thinking, strengths and weaknesses in many ways. Also I was impressed by the Spanish team and their theatrical session where we tried to use some artistic, body language educational games by ourselves. The core of this training was a school visit and implementation of our own activities for young children from Ayia Napa international elementary school. I would say that a few first days were just preparation and examples of possible activities to give us some imagination and ideas of what we could do with children. Later we had to create (or more exactly modify already existing) our own non-formal learning method working in the international teams. For me this part was the best because we made something real and useful and later even tried it in educational environment. So the last day we visited a school and had a possibility to try our pedagogical skills. It was quite hard but great experience.
During the evening of training course we had a few nice intercultural events and quite a lot of free time in the town and seaside. Even the location where we stayed in Paralimni, is really touristy, this period of the year was perfect and we could enjoy calm places and not crowded beaches. After all, this project was successful and a nice experience for me which I will remember for a long time.
Andrius Toločka
