Story of Abroadship’er Airidas Vainoras from London, UK:
airidas – abroadship.org
I want to title my trip as Lost in Transylvania. I got an offer to join ”Create the Change!” training course in Romania just few days before its start. Usually I am preparing and planing my journeys. I know exactly where I want to go, what to see and what to do. But this time I decided to escape from London, get out from my box – my comfort zone and try new things in my life.
I landed in the country where, according the stereotypes, ”nobody” speaks English, even taxi drivers. OK, now I can say it’s not an absolute true, Romanian youngsters were great helpers for me. I travelled 267km from Bucharest to Miercurea Ciuc, like XX century traveller without Internet, without Wi-Fi. It wasn’t a rocket science, because I got train timetables and address of final destination, thanks to organizers.
It was my first Erasmus plus training course in my life. I didn’t have such kind of trainings since I graduate my studies, looks like it was long time ago, like BC. So, in small town of Miercurea Ciuc in Transylvania I met an International gang, incredible people from: Greece, Georgia, Hungary, Spain, Portugal and Romania. I spent wonderful time with them. Many times we get lost in translation, cos English wasn’t our mother tongue. And we got a lot of laugh from wrongly pronounced words. We corrected and taught each other.
We were of different age, from different cultures, but worked as a team on our tasks. As foreigners in strange country we helped each other to get our goals. During some trainings we weren’t allowed to speak, so we communicated non verbally and we got connection. Art workshop was a real therapy for many of us, we felt as we are kids again, cos we weren’t doing such things since secondary school. And we used our fresh knowledge in practise, when we visited local orphanage. It was heartbreaking moment for many of us working with kids. We weren’t total aliens for them, cos our Hungarian friends helped with communication. On Live Library session we met books – local entrepreneurs and had conversations with them about their business. In the last phase of course we presented our future projects to them.
“It was heartbreaking moment for many of us working with kids” Airidas Vainoras
I got great support from my new friends to feel more confidence for talking to audience. I know I still need work hard on it. I think I become a better listener, that I was before. Frankly speaking training course was tough, but we worked hard and played harder.
I made a bunch of new friends, I enjoyed working with them. And now I making plans to visit them around the Europe.
“I got great support from my new friends to feel more confidence for talking to audience. I know I still need work hard on it. I think I become a better listener, that I was before. Frankly speaking training course was tough, but we worked hard and played harder” Airidas Vainoras
Training course: Create The Change
Location: Miercurea Ciuc, Romania
Dates: 16-24 September 2016
Number of participants: 24, out of which 2 come from Abroadship.org
Participating countries: United Kingdom, Romania, Spain, Georgia, Portugal, Macedonia, Hungary, Greece
Organizer: Eleven Art and ReCreativity
Description: We look at social entrepreneurship as a way of life in which the individual is aware what he is capable to do and most importantly how to use all the resources which surround him in order to create a change. The training is built up in a way that it starts from indi- vidual level where we de ne personal values and goals, we discover our own learning- and working styles by creating design objects in practice, and by working together with people from other countries, always in di erent combinations.
Design thinking, participation, and social inclusion are the key elements of the proce- dure of creation – where ’creating’ and ’design’ means anything what the human mind can imagine and the human action can realize. We deal with sustainability from a practi- cal side as well – how the individual can live a sustainable life economicaly, environmen- taly and socialy, simply by connecting the already existing resources and best practic- es. How to make our enterprise sustainable from the same 3 aspects as well. Day by day team work and the group context gets more in focus and how we turn ideas into reality.
Program and method
In the training we use a special method which is a combination of„learning by experience” and „creative recycling”. Learning by doing and simply experiencing situations out of your comfort zone will allow you to observ your actions, get to know your working style, re ect on it and adapt this knowledge to di erent life situations – in this training focusing especially on social entrepreneurship and sustainability, and how to realize your ideas by making an im- pact. We use creation and creative recycling as a simple process to support you in re ecting on your actions, see the result, and try out how you appear and function in a group context. Creative recycling also allows us to look at sustainability from a very practical point of view.
The program contains short lectures, team building elements, creative recycling pro- cesses in di erent combinations: individual- , pair- and group creation, sharings, re ec- tion group meetings, prototyping, outdoor elements, testing, land art, a whole morn- ing of living library with case studies, street survey, business model making, planning. You can expect the program to be intense as we also expect participants who are eager to learn. The program will start every day at 09.30 in the morning and in some days we will also have sessions after dinner which can last till 22.00.
Participants
We aim to select participants who are actively working in any form in youth work, in social entrepreneurship, managing their own organisations or are about to open one. The pro- gram is originally tailored for those who did not start their organisations yet, so in the train- ing they have the chance to gain knowledge and practice in advance. For the ones who are working in their own organisations already the training is a good chance for evaluation and planning forward. Also for freelancers, unemployed young people, designers, young people who are motivated to realize their ideas and make their own workplace. For youth workers, peer educators, volunteers, coaches, trainers who are working with young people and want to apply the method of creative recycling in social entrepreneurship education
You don’t need to have any speci c degree or previous experience to partic- ipate in this training, all you need is your motivation and willingness to learn something new! The language of the training will be English, a safe medium knowledge is enough, we will use an easy-to-understand level to make sure that ev- eryone can follow the program. Participants must be 18+, there is no upper age limit.
Trainers
Anna Sipos from Hungary, youth trainer and Co-Founder of ReCreativity Social En- terprise is going to lead the program together with an international team of experts. Anna has a master diploma in Education Management, she completed her internship pro- gramme in Brussels, in the Flemish Ministry of Education where has gained experience in programme tailoring and curriculum development. She launched ReCreativity So- cial Enterprise 3 years ago and together with the other co-founders they are making it sus- tainable by running succesfully also an upcycled brand called Cimbi next to the trainings. She has more than 5 years of experience as a trainer, using mainly the method of creative recycling and experimental learning in di erent elds: in social entrepreneurship, per- sonal development, communication, sustainability education, coaching and mentoring.
Detailed desription: here
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