Empower Forward

Between 6 and 14th of August DEIS Association implemented a training course named Empower Forward that brought together 22 participants from 6 different countries Hungary, Latvia, Macedonia, Serbia. Poland and Romania.

The aim of this course was to train the young volunteers from the participant countries in order to gain skills and knowledge to become multipliers of Youth in Action Programme and to be able to facilitate and coordinate workshops, conferences, round tables, meetings and other activities in the youth field.

The main objectives of the training course were to train young volunteers to become multipliers of youth programmes, to increase the youngsters’ skills and knowledge in the field of youth programmes, to empower and encourage the volunteers to develop youth activities, to enable the youth to maximize their potential, especially in the frame of Youth in action Programme and to promote volunteering among the locals, involving the international potential of the participants.

The activities in the training course included learning sessions on topics like how to build a team, learning styles, public speaking, Youth in Action Program, Youth Pass, non-formal learning.

During the training course the participants gathered the methods and learning exercises used by the trainers or proposed by the participants. The result of their work is this multipliers’ handbook meant to be helpful for other similar activities.

Download the brochure: A multipliers’ handbook – Empower Forward

What did the participants say?

Anna Bogdanova (Latvia)

Hello! My name is Anna Bogdanova and I took part in the project “Empower Forward”. The project took part in Sacalaseni (it 12km away from Baia Mare). I was a participant form Latvia. It was my second time taking a part in project in Baia Mare. I was there previous year and I fell in love at that city, at those people, which I met there and with whom we became a friends. It’s wonderful to have friends in other countries and Youth in action programs gave me that possibility.

So our team arrived in Baia Mare at late night. It was very pleasant when during all trip from Budapest to Baia Mare Diana kept us in touch by phone and Dani with Mircea met as at bus station and gave us a ride to Moara Veche in Sacalaseni. There we had a dinner and went to bed.

The first day was very difficult. It was overloaded with activities. We had a lot of activities for knowing each other better. It was very funny. There was different young people from different countries with different character, but we tried to understand each other and were polite to each other. At the end of the first day we became one team. During that day we got to know the aim of the project, a schedule for each day, created team rules. I liked that it was discussed in group where each participant had opportunity to say his opinion.

During all project days we did a lot of activities. It was with a purpose; those activities should help us to organize the Youth day. We were devised in several groups. Each group had individual task. Work in group was interesting, we spread our ideas which activities we would include we tried these by ourselves. I was very fun.

The Youth day was full of positive emotions. We had opportunity to visit the City Hall of Baia Mare, we had a small excursion there. We had a round table with mayor of Baia Mare. We might discuss youth problems openly. We shared an experience of problems of youth resolving in our countries. It was great!

All working days long we had a lot of good activities. I tried to write down everything, because I knew, that I would use these in school (working with my basic school students). And it really helps me now. I used some of them at my lessons students were very pleasant for them and sometime please me to make some of them activities again and again!

Each year taking part in projects in Romania changes my live. Previous year after participating I decided to study English better and started studies in University of Latvia in program teacher of English. This year after coming back home I started to use all materials from this project and it makes my work more interesting and more enjoyable!

Thank you Romania! Thanks Diana for inviting in Baia Mare! Thanks Andrea for activities! Thanks all participant for great work!

Katarzyna Pytlos (Poland)

Youth in action

Not only on vacation

Our introduction

To future youth in action

Youth in action

Need your reaction

Please us overhear

And be volunteer

So you have to remember that:

To our action

We need your reaction

Volunteers are changing the future

Our world doesn’t need money but people

Being a volunteer was always just fun for me and gave me satisfaction (I felt needed), but I never thought that would give me a great education and opened the door to find my right way in life. I worked 6 years with handicapeds men but sometimes i felt routine.

When the phone rang with the idea for the train to Romania, I thought, cool, chance for a certificate, and now the certificate is still at the bottom of the drawer and I have memories of some not even dreamed of and the friendships that I hope will survive the test of time and distance.

English was never my favorite, but forced to use it in speech and writing for 7 days I became more confident in future work in this language.

New country, new customs, that’s all important, but most important will always be people who create my world.

I undestood therem that is time to begin to enjoy life, to fight for myself, because even though everyone complains about Poland, it gives us a lot of possibilities, but do not really know how to use them.

Every day I learned something new there in terms of working in local communities, with children and youth, but also how you can learn and express themselves. The unique atmosphere in which friendship was mixed with hard work, decision-making with funny energizers. I know I will never forget those days, these people, this chance Dearest is that the very first day after returning home I received a message from four participants, a message full of warmth, feelings of what each of us needs. I hope that everything you taught me in Sacalaseni pay off in my future, because now I know how to work in a group, how to prepare the discussions, or interviews, but I know what is most important – as I live and who I want to be. Word : thank you is nothing, i will thank you all my actions and belief in people. No one never can take my memories, my knowledge.

Impressions on the Empower Forward training and what came after… (Ivan Milovanov – Serbia)

It is a bit unfair to fit something transcendental into words, yet it feels right because this can help understand something that overcomes conventional rationalism. Do not be alarmed – this short essay has nothing to do with the supernatural. On the contrary: it tends to describe something that is absolutely real. What is not yet an everyday experience can perhaps raise some difficulties to accept (I know how I can struggle with scepticism), but the mere fact that someone had the chance to function in a way that was only theory for him can help others seek this level of living.

I believe in luck as a coincidence. The right circumstances that we create for ourselves or better call it chance. We can take advantage of it or we can let it pass, never to know what it could have brought. It is not beyond our choice. For me it was the same with this training. A friend (who attended as well) mentioned it and it seemed like an interesting opportunity. I had some difficulties, because if I went to the training, I would have to give up on many other activities I was planning. In the end I decided to go for it. Even if it doesn’t turn out well at least something new will stick to me, I figured. Retrospectively it seems horrible that I could have missed something like this and never even know.

The first impression can be deceiving so I tried not developing any when we arrived, but that can be a challenging task. But what pretty soon became obvious was that our hosts have great sense of hospitality and openness. All the participants were ready to work together, but in the beginning it seemed obvious to me that we all have our reserves. Thankfully, the two trainers Andreea Tundrea and Diana Sabo have impressive insight, preparation skills and experience that enabled them to develop our group’s connection. It was strange and busy for the first two days. After that the atmosphere became even friendlier and the work we did seemed less of a chore and more like a challenging assortment of games. It is impressive how many things can people learn in just one day not even realizing it until the process is over. Being connected, tending to help each other out and fitting into each other’s needs proved to create a behaviour pattern that has much more potential with energy distribution than the activities that are done individually. Of course, after I came back home, I realized that this way of functioning needs everybody involved to care toward such a cooperation as well as somebody (the trainers) to facilitate this progress.

It is also true that besides working so productively together, the time we spent made us more emotional and we made friends. Some will last, but all will remain as a memory that is cherished and can help us remember how life can be meaningful in so many ways.

The training was really well prepared, yet I feel that spontaneity (which was a good reminder for me) made the whole mechanism work as it was invented to work forever. We had workshops and some individual work that we had to present, so we practiced the whole lot of theory we had access to, but the real challenge was transfusing these skills into real-life situations. So we had this chance, thanks to the will of our trainers to incorporate this training into the International Youth Day and many activities in Baia Mare. This was the proof and the first product (out of many to come) of our perpetuum mobile.

After I came home, I immediately had the luck to successfully improvise with my newly acquired skills. These contain raising awareness for maintaining our eco-system, the need and ways to actively develop our society, make different people understand each other (especially with cops and politics – as I learned on the training, the mutual respect and direct communication is the foundation of progress) and even making some fun activities for friends (like treasure hunt that develops different approaches in thinking and acceptance, which was one of our workshops) who already started thinking of their own about new ways of expression and functioning.

I don’t use the expression easily, but this training was fate. It was at the right time with the right people and everything spontaneously turned out to be something that could be best described as perfect. Even some bad things like conflicts had a positive outcome, as this was one big chance to better our collective lives. It definitely made me concretize my dreams. I’ll always be thankful for everybody involved, as now I know for sure what the term “miracle” means in modern society and I am also aware that the necessary circumstances for magic to happen need to be pushed by us.

Let’s inspire each other. 🙂

Empower Forward

by Andrei Balan

Empower Forward training “burned”

this is what I’ve learned:

when a good team is forming

it can be storming

it can be rough

sometimes you bluff

sometimes you laugh

but you need the team

you don’t need the half

challenging way

from brainstorming

to performing

creative ways

of evolving

don’t hide

keep involving

you’ll wake up

with more knowledge

in the morning

quit snoring

it is not boring

it is flowing

just like birds are flying

who said youth work it’s lame?

they are lying

later they are crying

you’re finding new friends

it just depends

to be open minded

break stereotypes

and find new types

of socializing

new types of improvising

have fun

dance

and sing

bad thoughts?

fling

keep spinning

keep dealing

feedbacks

you’ll get yours

it’s amazing what you learn

during a training course

and of course

it’s a rain

of infos

bring your ho’es

learn about cultures

and taste food from their homes

personally

I did

I took a bite from this

youth in action

seed

that grows bigger and bigger

helping me to succeed

helping me to achieve

dreams that indeed

exist

dreams from my goals list

so I erased the mist

I’ll empower forward

this knowledge ball

have a nice trip

and nice to meet you all.

 

Parteners:

Regional Developement Support Center „Ritums” – Latvia

Association MANA Strumica – Macedonia

Dolnośląska Wojewódzka Komenda OHP – Poland

Local Democracy Agency – LDA – Serbia

Hang-Kép Egyesület – Hungary

This project is financed by the European Commission through the Youth in Action programme.

 

 

 

 

 

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