Organizer, Applicant: See Why (CY)

 

“The Erasmus+ must go on”

 

Youth Exchange – Program Countries:

2018-3-CY02-KA105-001452

 

Partners: See Why (Cyprus), Brno for you (Czech Republic), Active Youth club (Estonia), En Gnosi (Greece), NECI (Italy), HEureka Generator (Poland), Evolution association (Romania).

 

Paralimni, Cyprus, 16-25/10/2019

 

Description of the project:

The idea of this project is to promote Erasmus+ through a song that participants during the exchange will work together to compose, put lyrics, create a video clip and share through media and local events. In our project we aim to give the youngsters the practical skills to use their talents and creativity for their self-development but also for the inspiration of other youngsters in all over the world.

In our current society, people spend a lot of time in front of computers, mobile phones and new technologies, therefore we want to take advantage of it and use it for the benefit of Erasmus+ promotion. We aim to encourage the youngsters to be more active promoting values such as lifelong learning, critical thinking, active citizenship, and volunteerism. Throughout this project participants will be engaged in a number of activities and practical workshops that will help us to achieve our goal in an entertaining and inspiring way.

 

Objectives:

- To increase awareness of the Erasmus+

- To support passion for music and use it as a non-formal learning method

- To motivate young people to be more active

- To develop team working skills

- To discover new cultures and find common ground through music

- To promote and disseminate our experience on E+

- To develop self-confident, self-expression and creativity

- To create a new dissemination and awareness tool

- Discover new cultures and find common ground through music

- Develop attitudes of community involvement

- Self-reflection on each stage of the project for the learning recognition process

 

Participants from Italy:

Lisa Supino

Fabiana Forcina

Marta Verrecchia

Alexandra Maria Astalus

Giovanni Palazzo

Abbas Mirzayev

 

Reflection Diary:

Thanks to the Erasmus+ program, 40 youths had the opportunity to participate in the Youth Exchange “The Erasmus+ must go on”, hosted in Paralimni by the organization See Why. NECI Italia selected six guys with fewer opportunities, giving them the chance to live this experience in Cyprus.

In June, all the leaders plus one participant from each country met each other during the APV, the Advanced Preparatory Visit. In that short meeting they had the opportunity to see the venue in advance, to decide how to develop the activities, to talk about the target of the participants and about all the important aspects for the success of the project.

We arrived in Paralimni on 16th night of October, so we started to get to know each other from the next day during the first activities, through ice breakings and name games.

Since just few of us already knew about Erasmus+ programs, the others at the beginning were a bit worried about the experience: “I was afraid to not be able to open up with the others, because of my shyness” (Marta) / “My fears were mostly about the communication with the other participants, since I don’t practice my English so frequently, so I was afraid that I wouldn’t make new friendships” (Fabiana).

The activity about Youthpass and Key Competences was very well structured: “I personally appreciate that workshop because, even for me that I already has some knowledges regarding it, it was very interesting and useful, also because recently the 8 Key Competences have been revised” (Lisa).

It was very interesting also the activity “The needs of my local community”, in which we shared between us all the opportunities that our countries give to the youths: “We found out that in almost all our countries we don’t have so many opportunities; for example, we talked about some local festivals and celebrations, like the “Notti di Cicerone” that we have in our hometown” (Giovanni).

Another activity in which we could find many things in common with the others  was the “Intercultural communication workshop”: “It was very helpful, especially to get to know each other’s cultures and traditions. We shared our typical fairy tales and, at the end, we discovered that many of them are very similar to the others” (Fabiana).

The workshop “Talent Hunt” was the starting process of the main topic of the project, because we had to think about our own talents, trying also to discover the hidden ones, letting us to get involved in something we couldn’t image to be good in: “I loved this activity because I found many thing in common with the rest of the group. At the beginning I felt a bit uncomfortable because it was just the third day, but after this activity we were closer to each other” (Marta).

This activity helped us to divide the group in 5 teams and to start working on the music, choreography, video and lyrics production. The final teams didn’t look so balanced, based on the talents of each participant, but at the end each team created something unique: “Right when we started to think about how we could work in my team, I felt a greater harmony between us. It was very helpful to strengthen ties in each team, and also I got more knowledges about composing and editing” (Fabiana) / “I consider it as the best part of this exchange, because I worked very well with my team, each of us involved in the creating process, and, despite my first worries about giving my ideas or about my English level, everything went perfectly. I’m very proud of the result, we put all our energy on this, having also a lot of fun in creating the melody and writing lyrics” (Marta).

We also had the opportunity to have an exhibition at Thalassa Museum in Ayia Napa, and it was a great experience even if local people were not so involved in that event.

One of the last activities was the “European Solidarity Corps/Youth Opportunities”: “It was so interesting for me because I was totally ignorant about these volunteering programs, so I found it very helpful. Since I would like to take part at one of these programs, at least now I am more aware on what I should search for” (Lisa).

During the project we spent three nights sharing our tastings and cultures through intercultural nights, in which we learned traditional dances, tasted traditional dishes and snacks, and had fun playing games and quizzes on our traditions.

On the last night before the departures we received our Youthpasses and we had the farewell party, during it we could spend our last moment together and starting to say goodbye in a very touching moment: “It was my first YE and I have to say that it was an awesome experience! I met a lot of amazing people from different countries and I wish I will meet them again soon. I improved my English, and this experience helped me also to open up to the others more easily” (Marta) / “This is my first experience but it definitely exceeded my expectations, I would like to apply for another project soon! I also overcame all my background fears and worries, and I made a lot of new friendships” (Fabiana) / “I really enjoyed this Exchange and I didn’t expect such a great results from it. When we presented our final products I was really impressed, because we did an amazing job, considering that we are not experts. In my team we created the beat of the song by using just an application on the phone, not even on a laptop, and I personally didn’t know it could be possible to do it” (Lisa) / “It was such an amazing experience! The topic gave me the opportunity to express myself a lot. Thanks to so many activities of teambuilding I understood how it’s important the right collaboration for doing better our works, but it fits in life in general also, not only in a project. I met a lot of amazing guys and they left me so many memories and an unforgettable experience!” (Giovanni).