(in)DEPENDENT — Romania

Addictions. Something we encounter every single day, yet some of us don’t even realize how big their impact on our lives is. Thanks to this project, eight teams from eight different countries, each consisting of 5 participants, had a chance to dive deeper into this matter, discuss its main points altogether, find out more about them and how to fight them – eventually focusing on how to become truly “independent”.

 

The project took place in Sărata-Monteoru and later in Buzău, where the organizators and facilitators -Bogdan and Fabi- did a great job with managing our multicultural group and leading us through the topic. At the beginning of the project, we got to know its main aims and did some icebreaking activities, later throughout the upcoming ten days we spent our time debating, drawing comics, talking to experts, creating landart or shooting movies, all related to the projects topic in randomly mixed teams for each activity. We had a great time and our group was overall very communicative, creative and fun, people got along easily and the environment was very accepting and caring.

 

In terms of our venue itself, we got to explore the surroundings of the Sărata-Monteoru village, especially the beautiful Carpathian Mountains through many activities. The Romanian cultural night gave us an opportunity to taste some traditional meals and learn some local dances too. We spent the last two days of the project in Buzău, a nice city with a lot to do, and on the way there we stopped at Romania’s “Muddy Volcanos” – a geological and botanical reservation the mountains where the land looks like a surface of a foreign planet with bubbling toxic mud everywhere, which was truly astounding.

 

Overall our project went as well as it could, the programme was full of activities that varied and each taught us something different, we have practiced how to work together as a team, how to communicate our thoughts, had chances to discuss topics we’re interested in, spent the days working while nights mainly dancing, and most importantly, we’ve learned many, many things from one another. It doesn’t matter if it is while discussing the impact of addictions during a debate or during a night full of playing board games, spending meaningful time in a group of so many great open-minded people these exchanges bring together always shapes you in some way.

 

EYCB did a great job making it possible for us to take part in this project, we are very thankful for the amazing time we had and we wish everyone applying for the future mobilities to enjoy them as much as we enjoyed this one!

 

Valentina V.