Last week I got the opportunity to participate in a Youth Exchange with 50 other people from Bulgaria, Italy, Romania, Turkey, Portugal, Slovenia, Poland and the Netherlands. Project “The Journey Goes on to New Horizons” took place from 23rd of September 2017 to 1st of October 2017 in Kranevo. It is a resort village not so far from Varna, quite dead at this time of the year, but it doesn’t really matter when the atmosphere created by participants is so spirited.

 

Youth Exchange: what is it?

To give some hint for those who have never heard about Youth Exchanges. YE is one of the programs under the Erasmus + framework. It gives the opportunity for young people all around the world to meet and work together on a certain topic. You can read more about this idea here.

Bulgarian team and partners

I was a part of a Bulgarian team together with three other youngsters: Vasko, Ivan and Viktor, who cooperate with Association FOR YOU at different levels. They participate in other similar projects, help as volunteers or are involved in workshops of Социална работилница “За Теб”. The other two participants, Nikolay and Antonina, were also a part of the team. At the same time, they helped in preparation and organisation of the Youth Exchange. Project was organised by Rock Solid Foundation for International Youth Work from the Netherlands. It was done in cooperation with their partners. The collaborators were Zavod ODTIZ, H20, Asociatia DOWN, Gencgider, Rainbow Group and Association FOR YOU. But people to whom we should thank for all this fuss are Chris van Maanem as a main trainer and Antonina Atanasova as a facilitator.

Activities during the week!

What have we been doing? As it is an informal way of education, and because the accent was put on integration of people with and without different disabilities, as well as on sharing our cultures, we did many team-building games, intercultural evenings etc. There were also some outdoor activities in Varna and in Kranevo so that we could make contact with local people. Ah! We should not forget about having many conversations in between as well.

 

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It was definitely a good boost of energy before the Autumn!