ERASMUS+, Key action 1: youth exchange
Venue: Busteni, Romania
Dates: 15—25 February 2024
Czech team: 4 participants + 1 group leader
Please read the info-pack
Hosting organisation: ODEN NEHOIU
Project report:
Project Don’t hate me took place in Romania particularly in the small town of Busteni. Busteni is surrounded by mountains and natural reserves and symbolizes a place with wild nature and fresh air.
The whole project was well managed, facilitated and elaborated. Participants have acquired information about bullying and cyberbullying across Europe, they’ve learned how to recognize it, how to act when they witness it and also created scenarios, posters and even statues to describe and explain the topic. They have practiced communication skills and always had an opportunity to defend their opinion. Thanks to intercultural evenings awareness about different European cultures and traditions was raised (dances, songs, food).
During 10 days of the project the bond between all national teams was created as well as bond within national groups. This helped a lot with tolerance between cultures and different countries. During activities a lot of methods of informal learning were used. These methods supported participants’ involvement and teamwork, ability to present and defend their opinion and to create outcomes like video materials, posters and also memes (which was very creative).
Organizators took advantage of the location and they implemented a lot of outdoor activities. The program of the project was really complex but those activities helped the participants to stay focused.
I was a leader of the Czech team so I will highlight the most effective learning methods and best parts of the project according to my team.
- grassroots comics – at first a lot of people felt little discomfort about this activity. They were convinced that they don’t know how to draw and don’t know what to draw but after conversations and preparation of a few concepts we felt better. And the results were fascinating.
- Intercultural evenings – erasmus project without intercultural evening wouldn’t be complete. And here’s why. These evenings connect everyone together, it creates a group of people who are able to understand themselves better and to cooperate when they’re given a task. Also the connection of entertainment and education works perfectly.
- Media campaign – the task was to create a video following a topic of bullying. We saw a lot of innovative ideas, interesting editing, jokes connected to our group and so much more. According to participants not only from the Czech team it was one of the best activities and it opened up their creative side.
- City bound – we’ve been given a few tasks to complete but it was impossible to do without communicating with locals. A lot of participants needed to overcome initial nervosity but after they did they enjoyed it.
In conclusion the Czech team considers this exchange as of a high quality. All of us met interesting people, some of us agree that the project gave us a new spark into life, others say it gave us new perspectives on life or that it made us more valuable for the labour market. Doesn’t matter which one applies for a particular participant, the fact is that this exchange helped us become better persons and europe citizens.
Filip J.
