Learning Bits from the TC 'Flourishing Youth' about Positive Psychology in Youth Work

© Monica Mano 'Practicing Effective 
Ways of Memorizing Names'

This is a story about a rather unique training course 'Flourishing Youth: Positive Psychology in Youth Work' (under Erasmus+) organised by Anatta Foundation [NL]  that took place at the end of September 2017 in the Arboretum Prandi, located in a charming little Northern Italian town Sale San Giovanni. It gathered together inspiring group of people working with youth, i.e. youth workers, high school teachers, young activists and academics from Germany, Slovenia, Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom (more specifically from Wales) and Italy (and a volunteer from Finland), interested to collectively explore the concept of positive psychology, exchange experiences in the youth work, present specific cases and collectively find solutions using positive psychology, create new friendships and contacts for future collaborations and much more. And here is a small overview of this exciting learning journey we took together...

'EU - To Be or Not To Be': The Big Question We Tried to Find an Answer To During an Erasmus+ Youth Exchange in Syke, Germany

'Global Village at Bremen's Central Station'
© NaturKultur e.V.

My most favourite summer activity is to attend interesting events, especially those with a strong international flair. For that matter, I had the honour to be the Dutch group leader at an international youth exchange 'EU - To Be or Not To Be' organized by NaturKultur (and thanks to Erasmus+ financial support) that took place in Syke (Bremen area), Germany from 12th to 21st June (2017). The youth exchange gathered together around 40 young people from 7 countries, namely Italy, Greece, Hungary, Romania, the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Germany (plus unofficially Croatia  and Montenegro - since the project coordinator and the main facilitator Slobodan was (and still is) originally from Montenegro and the two volunteers that cooked amazing food the whole week were (and still are) Croatian. I'm not even mentioning 1 Russian, 3 Turkish and 2 Latvians (that includes me) among the participants that just majorly serves as a living proof of 'free movement in Europe' in its full action). Important to notice, the choice of participating countries for this international youth exchange was not made randomly, as the event tried to gather countries that represent both extremes - EU supporters and skeptics. So what did we learn and discuss this week? Is there a common European future? Read on to learn more...

It's Up to Me Indeed: Bits from the Training for Trainers 'It's Up to Me 3'

© Ayhan Feraset 'Getting ready for 
the group photo'

This is a story about an inspiring 7-day learning-by-doing experience that happened in a picturesque little village Diepenau, in considerably Northern part of Germany in the beginning of March 2016. I'm speaking about a training course for trainers 'It's Up to Me 3' that gathered 35 young and energetic participants from 7 countries, namely from Norway, Italy, Macedonia, Spain, Latvia, the Netherlands and Germany willing to become inspiring trainers and learn new things about trainer's realities, exchange ideas and passions, form new friendships and obtain new contacts, as well get to know committed organisations and individuals that could become their partners in developing and implementing future projects, and also learn new things about different cultures. Moreover, the cultural diversity represented in the training course was beyond the 7 countries that officially took part in this training course - as such the colorful support team consisted of individuals coming from Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia, two shadow-trainers coming from Croatia and Estonia and even more colorful team of trainers coming from Romania, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and even the U.S.

An Inspiring Journey of Learning: Bits from the Training Course 'Art for Community Development'

© Biljana Klisarova

It's been quite a while since the last time I attended one of these always inspiring events under Youth in Action program. I missed them. I missed the feeling of empowerment and being among the same-level crazy people that see solutions before problems, and give any at-the-first-glance crazy idea a healthy amount of soil to grow into a real initiative. Yes, you guessed right, I'm speaking about the brave change makers of the world that are sure the change can be made with their own bare hands (and minds). Maybe sometimes you just need a a little push, or sometimes you're the one that pushes someone if he/she is stuck in an ugly moment of stagnation. The training course 'Art for Community Development' gathered 28 young people from 8 countries, namely Czech Republic, Macedonia, Portugal, Spain, Latvia, France, Poland and Romania in a lovely small town Přerov in South-East Czech Republic to learn and discuss how art can help and is actually already helping to foster community development, develop new ideas for future cooperation and projects, and remind themselves and the rest of the world one simple truth 'JUST DO IT'!

Life of an NGO - Leading Politics Without Government

© (RED)

You are young and strong willed? You know what you want to achieve in your nearest future? Or actually you have no clue about the future, but you have some bright ideas at the present, which could change exactly your future and the society you're living in? Just start a magazine, make an art workshop for kids, help to prevent poverty in Africa, set up a football match against racism, create a workshop to clean your city - do whatever is good to keep society curious and aware about certain meaningful topics - and an NGO is one of the best to do it!

Like in the beginning of the world there was a purpose of creating something (if we believe that was this 'cosmic' dust transformed into the planet Earth we inhabit now), and creating starts mainly with an idea. An idea which survives the times, circumstances and problems. The same can be referred to the creation on a non-governmental organization (further NGO). Mainly in the beginning it's just a small group of enthusiastic people sharing the same interests about certain topics and a big desire to influence the on-going affairs in on a local or global level (feeling the urge of preventing certain problems/speaking out about global consequences in local communities/alter 'unhealthy' thinking etc.).