adventuretime2022

[adventuretime2022]

4 steps how to reconnect with yourself

1) turn off all electronics , phone,laptop,all

2) put a blanket on the floor , preferably infront of a window ( clean the floor ,dont be a savage 😃)

3) start counting the seconds of your breath. Your normal breath in and out is 3 seconds long,6 seconds in total

Work your way to 5 seconds in,5 sec out , 10 in total

4) listen to your thoughts for 10-15 minutes, dont judge them. Listen to them and let them go.

Only if you know how you feel and what bothers you you can make peace with it.

Motivated by Abroad ship Erasmus opportunity

[adventuretime2022]

From 16 of oct to 24 of oct i was on Erasmus in El Palmar , Spain. The topic was Bees. We did handcrafting with bee's wax like skincare and painting. We had a farmer invitate us into his land to show us how he works. We had presentations and intercultural activities.

[adventuretime2022]

Hello, dear travellers! 

This is another one of my Erasmus stories I love sharing with you ! 

This one was my first ever Erasmus project. It was a training course in Bergolo, Italy. This is a very small village in the mountains with the grand total of less than 50 residents. I had the pleasure of visiting from 27th of April to 5th of May.

My sending organisation was Active Bulgarian Society ( ABS ) 

Our group had people from Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, Czech Republic, Portugal, Greece, Estonia, Latvia. 

‘‘Bergolo Digitale’’ was organised by  Associazione Vagamondo.  "Preserving and protecting cultural heritage is a fundamental human right." With this project, they wanted to develop a process of awareness of the value of the cultural heritage, through the digitalization of this heritage, all aimed at the social valorization of art and culture as instruments of inclusion, growth, and pride.

We used the ‘’learning by doing’’ prosses in which divided ourselves in teams such as Social media team, Gamification team , Journalist team , Sites team and we all worked to digitalise the rich cultural heritage the Castalletto area has. We got practical skills on how to make sites, attract tourists , popularize an area , make engaging activities and more. We also got a valuable inside of how the QR technology works. It was highly educational and opportunity like no other. 

If you have any questions , feel free to text me !

Best wishes, Iliana xoxo

[adventuretime2022]

RESOURCES FOR TRAVELING

Those are some foundations/NGOs,sites and others i have collected and will continue to collect with travel and development opportunities

SALTO youth

Overseas association OCTA

https://www.overseas-association.eu/projects/

Youth opportunity

AEGEE Sofia, Bulgaria

[adventuretime2022]

ERASMUS+ IN DENMARK

Hello, person probably interested in free travel ! This will be a big post about my Erasmus+ project in Denmark.

I made a small description on the idea behind Erasmus+ projects on my post about the youth exchange in Portugal so you can check it out after you finish reading this. Basically, Erasmus plus is 10 day project with anything between 2 and 10 countries in countries *mostly* in Europe. You receive your money for the flights  after the project and food + accommodation during the project. When you are on Erasmus+ you are considered a Youth worker and you receive a Youth certificate after to put on your CV and advance in certain fields and career paths.

Now that this is out of the way, lets talk about this particular project.

It was called YE ''Promoting gender equality and social dialogue''. ( YE = Youth exchange )

It was organised my KKW and CYN. KKW stands for Kurdish Women Union Denmark , they work with women ,children and young people, especially those who immigrated to Europe in search of improvised living standards.  KKF focuses a lot on social inclusion, and their mission is to break stereotypes and foster solidarity, intercultural awareness. CYN  is a non-governmental organization established in Denmark, it stands for Copenhagen Youth Work. They arrange EU funded Erasmus+ youth mobility projects.

My sending organisation was Walk together Bulgaria. They are learning organization that gathers trainers, youth and social workers, youth policy makers, experts, and volunteers with different levels of competences to actively be involved in the creation of civic activities with European dimension and with benefits for their local communities.

The project was on 22.06 - 30. 06. 2022. The venue was   Store Klaus, Ganløse Denmark. The transportation on this project was arranged from train/metro station Værløse which is around 10 min by car from the venue itself. So we had to fly to Copenhagen and then catch a train ( also reimbursable ). The budget for bulgarian participants was 275 euro which several members of the BG team exceeded. The venue was very simplistic in its nature. In an area with a lot of villas /summer houses , we enjoyed both the flora and the fauna of the countryside. ( mostly family Culicidae for the ones studying biology. )  Little thing about the preparation for this project that was different from others was that we had to take care of the bedding. The food was , as per usual , on schedule . The girls were divided by country in rooms, however all of the boys were in one room together. Safe to say the bathroom situation was difficult for both sexes. Also, there was no laundry options besides hand washing and air drying.  The working space, the dining area and the sleeping rooms were all in one house ,behind which there were hidden tire swings and a big, beautiful field perfect for watching the sunset. We had a groceries store 10 min away from the venue that got pretty much everything you would expect in a supermarket ,but it was around 20 to 40 percent more expensive compared to Eastern and Western Europe.

The project itself however introduced me to so many new activities , I am still    reminiscing about it. I have been on 1 other YE , the one in Portugal. There  we had arranged and fixed activities, we had to make presentations on fixed topics, posters on fixed subjects. We had freedom on the way of presenting and the making of the papers themselves but apart from that, it was more or less organised.

In this project I got the opportunity to organise and arrange activities myself with my team. We had a few things organised by them on the topic of discrimination and human rights etc. Per example we had one activity in which we got a list by people , we were give the age, a few words or their living situation and if they can have kids and we were supposed to chose 10 people out of those 30 that can go to Mars before an apocalypse. I’d say that this one of the most challenging activities i have had so far in Erasmus+. It was seriously mentally exhausting first choosing even in a made up scenario who to live and who to die but also getting in groups and arguing about it with people who chose different. The after up when we had to present was even more engaging cause of course other groups made different choices. Overall , great activity .

After the arranged program was done the scene was ours. They gave us little direction on the topic ( being the topic of the project - human rights and gender equality, social dialogue ) and some help with the organisation and general idea of the activity but apart from that we could do everything that we wanted. And so we did. It was so colourful ! We made roleplays, puppet show, musical, etc. while discussing the big issues our societies faces.

It was all oriented around the notion that we - the group - were the project.

In total we were 36 people, I believe. We had people from Italy, Ukraine, Poland , Greece , Bulgaria , Turkey and of course - Denmark also had a big part of the project. Not with participants , but with a cultural night.

We started the project officially on the 23rd with games and little tasks like make a logo for the project, a dance, find items with all the letters from the alphabet and the youngest and oldest person on the group ( 16 and 30 ). I’d say that even from the beginning we had a good vibe going on. Even though we had a lot of ‘first timers’ almost everyone tried to connect and contribute from the start.

Each country had in total 3 activities to plan - an energiser, a group activity on the topic and cultural night ‘presentation’.

During the duration of the project we had a few games going on such as Secret Friend ( organised by the turkish team , great people ) and Kiss and Kill ( that one was organised by me )

Ukraine per example was represented by 4 charming smart girls , each of them different in her own way. They did a great job at educating us during the project of the reality of their country right now. I learned a great deal from them and I am extremely grateful for it.. We discussed the issues that women face in military, such as lack of  proper uniform, feminine products, gynaecologist and other. On a positive note it turns out that the ukraininan LGBT+ people in the army have united themselves under a sign that they openly wear on their uniforms. We discussed the life of the ukraininan refugees in Poland, Hungary etc. Team Ukraine took initiative several times to make activities such as cultural heritage activity which included choosing 2 female examples from national literature to compare women representation throughout centuries in different parts of Europe. I really enjoyed this because it puts a personal, kind of patriotic contribution to the whole conversation on women’s stand in society now and before. I was surprised by how many different examples we could think for Bulgaria and was extremely interested by the tales of the polish and the italian. Team Ukraine also developed also an activity to educate us on mediation ( the art of conflict resolution ) and manipulation tactics. Again , had a great time roleplaying confrontations and evaluating them ( shout out to the greeks for the absolute one of a kind performance of a student showing up with piercings and a conservative university professor  )

As for the BG team, we also had our fair share of planning. Non of us had any experience with facilitating so it was a rollercoaster . Our energiser was ‘Simon says’ As for the activity itself in the end we went with the idea for organising a debate on several topics such as ‘Religion does more harm than good : Yes or no ‘ ,’For or against Death penalty ‘ , ‘For or against euthanasia’ . We created the notion that we, as already representatives of our countries , have to represent them in a new state called Store Klaus and we have to make new legislation in a democratic manner. We divided the people in 6 groups with fixed theme and fixed position meaning that even if per example their personal believes were against religion they had to defend it. The idea was to develop critical thinking, to help people come up and break down arguments, maybe even explore the other side of the argument . Within their groups they had some time to explore the topic, come up with arguments and choose 2 people to represent them. After the time went up , the 2 teams with the same topic had to debate infront of the group, then we allowed time for the whole *voting force* ( probably not the way to say it ) of the new country to discuss and lastly make a vote. Then we continued with the next topic. If i have to be honest it was poorly organised. At the time i felt like everything that could have went wrong did. I was anxious during the planning and the activity itself .But upon reflection and consideration i am happy about the opportunity and the experience to organise such a thing and it definitely made me appreciate a facilitators, organisers and team leaders on a whole new level.

Another interesting activity was designed by the polish boys. The polish team was a high school friend group. They made an roleplaying activity to highlight stereotypes for each of our countries and creating a space to elaborate on those stereotypes. ( this is where i convinced my group to make a musical for ukrainian love for potatos and gorilka ; we also had a puppet show then .The other activity they made which was super cool was on communication .We had to find a partner, sit back to back and the one had to give instructions to the other on how to draw a specific picture ( plane, ship etc ) To be honest, when i received the picture i was supposed to describe i could feel 13 years of learning english useless before this bizzare little space ship. Joke aside, amazing activity . It showed us that the subtle details of communication can mean a great deal in the big picture, also how difficult it is really to explain something that the other person haven’t experienced or understand something you haven’t experienced for that matter.

The cultural nights is usually when the real party begins. Everyone brings something from his/her country that everyone can enjoy , sometimes they cook on spot , make a presentation of some sort and sometimes teach dances. After the cultural part is done, we play music, dance, talk and sit by the fire that was present every night.. On this project we were very strong on tongue twisters and dancing. Each country chose several tongue twisters and we took turns trying to say them and after we went to dance traditional dances.  The greek and turkish dances which were very easy for me as they are similar to bulgarian dances ,but out of all of them i loved best the polish one ( you dance in couples and switch partners, it was super fun )

On the Bulgarian cultural night we shared the scene with the other slavic country in the project - the ukrainians. We went into the kitchen together, sharing the same space to make our own cultural food . Bulgarians were making banitsa ( with ingredients from the bulgarian store in copenhagen ),pogacha ( bread ) and tarator ( cold soup made with bulgarian yougurt, cucumbers and other ingredients), ukrainins made borshch and bread from scratch. Each one of the bulgarian team was in a white t-shirt and the girls had braided hair. We gave each participant a bulgarian muscalche ( meaning a little flask with rose oil in a wooden painted box ,as rose oil production is emblematic for bulgarians )  When the time came the bulgarians opened the night with an educational video one of us had already prepared, google interview type of presentation about Bulgaria for which the audience could guess the answers to the questions and get halva ( a little sweet )  and for grand finale we organised a traditional bulgarian ritual performed on a wedding by the happy couple . They turn back to back, take the pogacha and hold it above their heads together. Then, they break it. Whoever has the bigger piece is going to be taking more decisions in the future. Then, me and my bulgarian teammate went through the group and gave each ‘guest’ a piece of the bread to dip in honey. Even though it was a big bread, it didn’t have a long life. We had a few tounge twisters and dances as well and then the ukraininans got the stage. They went with a classic for erasmus projects Kahoot and then taught us dances. ( 2 of the girls had in total 13 years of practice. ) After this , all laughing and happy we went to eat banitsa and borshch. And of course горілка ( aka vodka )

On some days we did your activities faster and we had free time. They got us into cars and drove us to a magnificent lake to take walks and swim in a sunny, warm afternoon. I can’t tell if this was my favourite moment or the musical.  I still want to go back to jump into the cold, clean water on the sunny day.

We also had a free day in Copenhagen with organised bus from and to the venue in which we went to Christiania ( it has a big weed business and great artworks on a little island ), Nyhavn , we went on a boat tour, saw the ‘least known statue in Copenhagen ’( there is a story about a woman who falls in love with a merman, they have children but she cannot breathe under water so she has to leave her children who will always wait for her as statues under the water, check out  ‘ Agnete and the Merman’) For the nerds, you gotta go to Faraos. You just have to. They have several stores litteraly one next to the other in the very city center and have huge collection on... everything. Costumes , games, LARP equipment , comics etc. For the insta lovers, go to the Botanical gardens. Unlike everything in Copenhagen this one is free and you get great views in the gardens and outside in the park with the lake. There is also a Butterfly house that is paid i think 40 krona for students, great experience.

So that was kinda it.

Shout out to the greeks, the italians , the turkish ,and ukrainians and the polish for the good vibes. Thank you for the great time. 

If you read all of this, thanks and if you have any questions hit me up here or on my instagram  @_notickz_ 

As per usual, read carefully the info pack and go.

Cheers, Iliana XO

[adventuretime2022]

ENERGISERS *on going list *

1. Racing and competing for a flag held by a person in the middle 

2. Hi,ha,ho ( pointing to a person up ,on the sides and to the next .... now that im writing this its very difficult to explain )

3. Symon says

4. Intro by a funky little original move and saying your name. then repeating the names and the moves of the last 3 people

5. rock ,paper ,scisors but if you lose you have to get behind the winner and shout their name as they continue the game with other people

6. Lock eyes and say hi,say the name, make butterfly, rub buts AND change places each time

[adventuretime2022]

Hello, person probably interested in Erasmus+ projects!

This is a little explanation about Erasmus in general and my 3rd Erasmus+ experience in Ponte de Lima, Portugal.

So whats an Erasmus+ project?

Well ,from what I have seen so far  ( I have been on 4 projects ) they are an opportunity financed by the EU to connect people from different countries both in the EU and outside ( Turkey, Armenia , Ukraine etc ). Unlike the university Erasmus programs lasting from 3 months to 1 year, their duration is 10 days. They use non-formal education which means that you learn a lot but you have more freedom on the process, to express yourself and consequently to represent your country indirectly. There are 2 types of projects - Youth exchanges  ( YE ) and Training courses ( TC ) .

The YE (such as this one ) give you more free time to network and have fun, the TC are more intense and focused on the topic of the course. Also, YE have a age limit ( 18-30 ) but the courses don’t (18 + ) meaning that on the courses you can find people 30+ yo. ( I met a person 44 yo once ) You can find projects in all of Europe  ( I am currently in Denmark ) plus some funky places like the Canary islands cause they are on paper part of Spain, same as islands part of France, Portugal etc. For this ‘youth work’ you receive a Youth certificate to put in your CV which in certain fields gives you huge advantage as it shows that you have experience in an international multicultural work setting.

There is a possibility for administrative tax from the sending organisation , the organisators or both in the range of 20-50 euro in total.

The projects all operate on schedule. Breakfast, activity, coffee break, activity, lunch, activity, coffee break 2 , dinner, cultural night , party , rinse and repeat.

They are very intense in a good way. You are almost never alone, you meet so much new and different people, you learn things you would never learn in school about the world and about yourself, you find yourself in discussions that would never occur in your bubble of life about various topics, you are presented with so much information about life, politics, traditions etc.

When it comes to expenses they cover your transport ( up to a limit, that you usually don’t surpass ) and food ( 3 meals, 2 coffee breaks with snacks).

Another cool opportunity is to come before or stay after the project to explore the country and party for 2-3 days.

Now, about this project.

The Youth Exchange was called  ”Healthy me, Healthy You(th)!” . My sending organisation was  International center for development of education and training ( Bulgaria ) In the project we had a diverse group of participants representing Bulgaria, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Hungary , Slovakia and  Greece. ( 30ish people ) We were living together, laughing together, working together and partying together and when the time came we left together.

They took us from the airport in Porto with good bus ( clean, maintained, airconditioned ) and after the project left us at the same spot.

The venue was Albergue da Quinta de Pentieiros .We were on a farm with sheep, horses ,cows, gardens etc. I was thrilled cause I have never spend a day on a farm or a village and one lamb let me pet it. It was quiet and beautiful.

All the girls were in one room, the boys in the next , all of us with bunk beds. The bathroom situation was challenging. We had people visit the near city Ponte de Lima for groceries. As for laundry ,there were a paid option ( 5 euro i think ) , the cleaned the clothes, dried and folded them for you which was super nice.

The project was aimed to help us connect with each other to discuss the health problems each of our countries face. We learned how to make first aid , how to analyse major issues, how to network , how to come up with solutions for different problems and how to communicate effectively.

We worked on strategy for young people in a future pandemic or similar crisis ( like spreading awareness amongst the uneducated masses who do not understand the need for precautions, providing help with everyday tasks for people who are in difficult positions, distributing means of safe drug usage for people who are using , making several platforms for free fitness, books, courses of languages and programming etc.

We had a roleplay of an important pharmaceutical real case about HIV drugs in Africa in which we explored the legal system, learned to formulate effective arguments and educated ourselves on the difficult process on producing and distributing medicines.

We had a representative of the Red Cross in Portugal who did great job at explaining to us the measures that Portugal has taken to tackle the drug abuse problem they had 20 years ago ( they are leading in the rank list of countries with most effective strategy on that matter )  and also to help us understand that addiction is not a sin or taboo but rather a sickness that need addressing like any other.

We had an Olympic champion Fernando Pimenta. He told us about his way of life, his short term and long term goals, mindset and the importance of strong support system ( friends and family ).

We had firefighters as part of the program to help us learn how to do first aid in several different situations, what’s the best strategy in case of fire, broken bones, broken nose, choking with food etc. We performed CPR and other vital procedures.

We had a free day in Ponte de Lima to explore and have fun with arranged transport ( if you visit go to the gardens , they are one of a kind )

In the first photo you can see all of us infront of our working space, in the second photo you can see my co-workers during my presentation for the project in Bulgaria.  Its part of the dissemination process ( meaning the money refund process and evaluation of a work well done ) to spread awareness about this opportunity that EU gives to its young people . In the last photo you see us in our free time activities where we went on a short hike to explore the area with a person born and raised in the area. I gotta say, it was clean and well maintained. They take their nature seriously.

My advise is READ THE INFO PACK AND GO ! ‘

Safe travels, Iliana XO