Amazing experience by FERSO and Erasmus + in Grotniki, Poland for 24 participants from different countries and backgrounds.
A group of people from 8 different countries; Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Poland, Republic of North Macedonia, Spain, Turkey took a part in a training project in a lovely village of Lodz, Poland and as Turkish team, we were representing ‘’Pi Youth Association’’, which is one of the most active NGOs in Turkey working for youth.
This training course aimed to develop the competences of 24 youth workers from 8 countries to help them support their youth to identify and pursue their life purpose. The project took 10 days of working with various interesting activities by amazing trainers Alexandra and Romy. All participants were involved in activities which lead them to express themselves into debates, simulation activities, and interactive workshops… Every day, we had great sessions where we learned a lot from each other, shared ideas and cooperated about the purpose. It was fascinating.
The Project was in the best place that I have ever worked. We were in the middle of forest…24 people from different backgrounds, ages, experiences… On the first day, we talked about our expectations, fears, and contributions and we got connected through team building games, set our group rules. We draw our cocoon which represented the things holding us back in life. We came up with a lot of questions on how to overcome a situation and how to set our mindset straight to have a cheerful and fulfilled life.
Also, we shared our problems within our communities… The point we got was that you didn’t have to visit Africa or any country that is considered to be in the third world, you should start with yourself and the people around you.
26 outstanding people came up with ideas on making the world a better place, for now, and for the future…Though we had different problems in our communities and countries (at some point we had the same), we shared solutions for everyone’s problems. The conclusion was that solutions are often simpler than they seem, but you have to take action to make an impact.
On the other days, we started with a journey to find our creative spirit. There was time for playing with circles to find a way to earn purposeful Money. With so much positive and famous energy, we were prepared to see whether our purpose can match our profession or not.
With “Open Space”, we met participants talking about different issues such as refugees, gender equality, movies and books about purpose, the power of juggling, etc. Then, after session activities, we reflected our learning experiences. Finally, we met our guests”Human Libraries.” Sylwia Gajewska inspired us with her theatre project and amazing ideas while 21 years old Alexandra surprised us with her success in swimming and we learned that no matter what our ages are, it is never too late to follow our passion.
We were to share our knowledge with the students from the art school and help them to go out of their cocoon and find their purpose. We did it in a creative way and with a lot of dedication and we received back motivation, inspiration and tons of positive energy.
After that we learned how to plan our actions, so we made our plans for all the things we want to do in the future and shared our ideas in groups.
The aims of the project were to increase awareness among youth people from different backgrounds, to let youth to take an active role in local communities, to bring together people from different ethnic, to create space for dialogue, to develop youth workers’ skills to support youth to find their life purposes and to raise their sense of purpose.
As a participant, I don’t have words to describe the feeling that I had for each project as they were different. It was a very enriching experience. We enjoyed the workshops planned in smaller groups where we were able to learn more about the personal background and contact of the different members of the group which allowed us to understand each other more and work past our differences. A challenge that I was faced with was the lack of time to be able to get to know all the participants on a more personal level. Nonetheless, we were able to exchange contacts and social media accounts to keep in touch.
Project Code: EPYE-58 Polonya
Participant: Sibel Tartut