Programme & action: ERASMUS+, Key Action 1: Youth Exchange
Venue: Pazardzhik, Bulgaria
Dates: 3-12 May 2017
Participants: Kristýna Liptáková, Zuzana Barešová, Tomáš Karlík, Anna Wojtková
Group leader: Jana Přepěchalová
Please read the Info Pack and timetable.
Hosting organisation: Association Focus
Participating organisations: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Turkey, Romania and Croatia
Project report:
Welcome to southern Bulgaria, Pazardjik!
Their gestures for yes and no are just opposite than you expect (so I missed the train on the 1st day:-)). Trains are sometimes going with open doors and almost never following the schedule, but who cares? Waiter in the restaurant is dancing and smoking weed instead of bringing you dinner, no stress…Oldschool cafe machines are everywehere in the street but not at the airport where they don´t even accept euros.You can more understand each other with local people by mixture of russian, polish,czech and slovak language than english :-).
Maybe you would not expect a lot from post-communist Balkan country. Actually Bulgaria did surprised me in a very positive way. I manged to visit also Sofia – the capital and Plovdiv – the oldest city with many ancient sights. The cities are really green and alive also with many artistic shops, flea markets and cultural events.
The project Ecofootprint was more about sharing our experience in ecological issues in our countries and comparing the impact in world than going deep to the topic. We did also try to involve local people with one street happening. The atmosphere during the sessions was always positive and everybody was interested in team work. Groups were mixed differently for every project, so that you could know better each other.
Lots of experience and laughing situations, time was not important… they are just little crazy those Balkan people, but no matter where you are, it´s about the magic of the moment and energy from positive people who really try hard to make a change in this chaotic place..1 action is more than 1000 word. Thank you,Pazardjik, Bulgaria <3.
I would especially like to thank to EYCB organisation for the possibility to participate in such an amazing project. I want to send also one big THANKS to the best organizators from FOCUS NGO ever (Ivaylo Ivanov, Valentina, Petko, EVS volunteers), especially to always happy Ivo, who put all his effort and time to make us laugh and feel comfortable in every situation. He is a real professional. I have to say that the time management of every day was perfect – combination of indoor activities and outdoor energizers. We also had enough space for our personal needs. We maybe only missed one trip to nature and those beautiful Bulgarian mountains, but unfortunatelly there was not enough time and weather for it. I think that our perfect czech team enjoyed it a lot!
This project gave me much more than youth exchange for few days – I feel full of motivation and enthusiasm about getting to know the non-formal education methods more deeply and maybe one day I will be able to create my own project for other youngsters 🙂
Jana Přepěchalová
