Programme & action: ERASMUS+, Key Action 1: Training Course
Venue: Topola, Serbia
Dates: 13 – 20 November 2016
Participants: Nikola Husličková, Klára Mikešová, Petra Špiková
Please read the info-pack & daily programme
Hosting organisation: Eko Mladenovac
Project report:
“Dobrodošli!” Welcome to Serbia! We were three Czech girls who found themselves to spend one amazing week in a small town with important historical background for Serbia. Project „ Young Active Europeans”, organised by Serbian NGO Eko Mladenovac is devided into two parts. The first part of this training course was held in Topola, Serbia between 13-20 November. Second part is going to be from 10-17 February 2017 in Krzyzowa, Poland.
For me this was my first project and it was my pleasure to meet two amazing girls with whom we created the best Czech team. In the beginning of the week we had activities for getting to know each other and teambuilding. Also there were two intercultural evenings during which we introduced our countries, traditions and cuisines. It was really amazing way of learning some new things about countries I have never been to. I made really quickly many new friends from Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo, Poland, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Turkey and Serbia of course. Our presentation of Czech Republic was considered as very successful by other participants of the course. We presented many different kinds of food and drinks. We also prepared a game about some interesting facts about Czech Republic and we were really surprised how many people knew so much about our country. Also we played some Czech music and tried to show and teach them some dances.
Our training course was full of many activities. There were many workshops and sessions that were led by our facilitators who gave us the direction and tasks. However we were the ones who worked on it. Every session we got a different task and we always worked in different groups. According to me that was really good tool for learning more about many different people and trying to cooperate always with someone else. It was mainly about teamwork and I think we all managed it very well. Some interesting workshops were about citizenship, society that we live in or for example EU support for youth activism. We had also chance to learn many interesting facts about the history of Serbia, since we were in Topola were the first Serbian uprising began. Our Hotel was right down the hill from St George’s Church also known as Oplenac which is a mausoleum of the Serbian and Yugoslav royal house of Karađorđević. We also visited the museum and local “Cafana”. Then we presented our NGOs that we came from and learnt some useful things about other NGOs and how and where to apply for grants for organizing such projects. In the end of the week we tried to plan our own project that could be possibly organized. In conclusion we had an evaluation of the week. During all sessions we were using
non-formal education approach. There were many energizers, teamwork, presenting our results through theatre play, pantomime, posters etc.
Even thought our hotel was not the best and we had many problems with cold/warm areas for our workshops, our host organization Eko Mladenovac tried to do everything to make our stay nice and comfortable. They were really friendly and good leaders of all activities we did there. To sum it up, I would like to thank everyone who contributed to make this project happen. It was a great experience and we all learned many new things from each other thanks to this project.
Nikola Husličková
