Implementation

In this page we are going to describe what happened to our youth exchange day by day. All the informations about the days were given from our participants which we thank them for their active participation in our amazing youth exchange. 

1st day Sunday 1st of October 

The Culture and Arts for Inclusion Youth Exchange just started! What we've done for the first day of the project?

48 participants from Poland, Lithuania and Cyprus got introduced to the project's aims, program and also set up the rules of the group that are going to be followed to create a safe space for everyone. Safe space is one for the non-education principles that was presented as well as another key-principals such as: active participation, learner-centred program and voluntary approach. Each of them was discussed together with all the group in order to have a common non-formal education understanding.

We also focused on getting to know each other and networking trying to remember each others names and exchanging cultural differences. Thanks to the variety of activities participants learned more about each other and worked a lot in mixed group in order to build international friendship. Such activities as: portraits drawing, bingo, ping pong game and speed dating was used for everyone to proceed with getting to know each other and create a friendly atmosphere. Also we started a game called "secret friend" where participants are able to bring some positive emotions to each other throughout the project and become close to each other.

Another important point was to analyse such terms as "discrimination", "tolerance", "human rights" and "equality" which is going to be an essential part of creating further final projects. Participants were divided into 4 mixed groups to analyse those terms and later present its definitions, examples in a creative way. By the end we had 4 presentation giving the full information about given terms with deep analysis.

Much more fascinating moment will be ahead and we are so excited about it!

2nd day Monday 2nd of October 

The Culture and Arts for Inclusion Youth Exchange started ! What we've done for second day of the project?

So our day started at 08:30 when we got up and ate delicious breakfast, later we went to the activity room where our wonderful facilitators brought us outside to do an energising warmup before the provided tasks.

To begin with, the first task that we got was about to present the organisation that we represent in this project. After that we had a quick break, and after the break we continued the chain of memories. We had opportunity to learn about art, dance and theatre. We danced, laughed, acted, sang. This activity helped us to know more about art and creativity.

After that, we ate lunch, some people had fun in the pool, some people rested and gathered energy for the upcoming activities. And 2 most fun parts about yesterday, that we had opportunity to explore the Pissouri. We played orienteering game, ran to a certain object, took a picture with it, and then rushed to the next place as fast as possible. This game helped us to get to know the village better, get to know local people, and also get closer to the Erasmus + participants. You can see all of our work in this activity and the implementation of the tasks in the link: https://cafin3.webnode.page/tasks-in-pissouri/ 

After this game, we had an amazing time learning new thing about Poland, and it's culture. We danced a lot, we laughed a lot and most important thing that we created memories that will last for ever.🩷

We are very excited about what will happen in the future and we really hope that we will continue to have such a fantastic time together.

3rd day, Tuesday 3rd of October 

Sooo, today we had a lot of activities related to an art ( after reflection I think everyone prefer to dance and do theatre the whole project )

Everyone woke up hardly because of the lack of sleep at night, but don't think it is a huge problem for our young souls. We ate delicious breakfast and were ready to start the activities.

Got to the activity room "as fast as we could". Did serious energise - "rock, paper, scissors". Full of energy, we kept doing the job, this one was serious: to sell products without using languages. For instance, for my group was easy, we used drawing instead of talking, guess for others was a little bit more challenging.

After coffee ( it's more mocktail ) break we continued workshop session. We needed to use our best way of communication - theatre, had to act a different period of humanity history or social rejection. It was fun and entertaining to observe others, but a little bit difficult for us to find the way how to translate the given topic.

Everyone met cool photographers Alex, who gave us a task to take portraits of people. In Lithuanian people opinions, the most interesting part was Alex story, how he became what, who he is now. For some of us it was an inspiration. We've been told about the story of photography and the way it stands agains the discrimination

The mooooost lovely activity was the last one, Evelina showed us stretch exercises and the whole project participants started to dance. It was relaxing and at the same time we felt like we're doing something better for us and everyone.

For the last, we had a reflection. We shared the better ones and the bad ones opinions with each other, so the project would become better. And we RAN TO EAT

4th day Wednesday 4th of October 

We started today, as always, with a delicious breakfast.

Then we all went on an amazing trip!

First to Kourion Ancient Amphitheatre where we presented real theatre performance. We were decided into 6 groups and presented Ancient Greek legends.

After that we went to Limassol where we had free time. Some of us went to the Limassol's Castle where we have an opportunity to interact with medieval culture of Cyprus

Others went to the Old Town to buy souvenirs and eat something at a restaurant (if their lunch wasn't enough : ) During the walk we had an amazing opportunity to communicate with each other and local people. Everyone was friendly and helpful.

Then we came back to the our hotel. Next we have also some of free time. Some of us went to the pool, others preferred to sleep, but the Polish and later Lithuanian team had no time to rest! We came to the beach to see an wonderful sunset

Afterwards we have got a Lithuanian Culture Night

We had a great time, we really enjoyed the dancing and for the first time in our lives we had the opportunity to eat a cucumber with honey. To sum up it was an extraordinary time to learn more about the culture of our neighbours and we can say that everything was brilliant!

Thank you all for this wonderful time and we hope for more at the next days!

Greetings Tosia and Kasia from Poland

DAY 5 Thursday 5th of October 

Today we started with a good breakfast and straight after it we went to the beach . Each group presented dance choreography in different styles. One of the most important parts of this activity was to express different emotions while dancing. So we used our body language to share the feeling through dancing. After that activity we played a typical cypriot integration game and spent our free time swimming in the sea and sunbathing at the beach.

After lunch we took part in activity related with theater, during which we prepared performances on the topic of discrimination . The method is called "Forum theatre" when everyone can fix the play and change the whole plot. It was a great opportunity to see how we can contribute in a peace building.

We spent the next classes in groups discussing the topics of art, youth exchanges, dance and theater and their use to fight discrimination using world cafe method where everyone could share ideas with each other.

During reflection time, we had the opportunity to exchange observations about the last two days. We ended the day with dinner and an evening of dancing in the hotel restaurant .

Day 6, Friday 7th of October 

Our day started with a delicious breakfast

The first session became the last workshop related to art. The group was decided into 2 groups - the first one made a final poster on a project topic using old magazines, origami, collage and other types of creativity. The other went for a mandala workshop where everyone had an opportunity to create their own mandala. The most important thing was the means by behind of the creation process- each colore that we used symbolised certain memory of the project. At the end we've got beautiful handmade mandala!

•At 11:00 we went for a coffe break for energy Then we continued our day with a debate to see different views from different sides Each of us had an opportunity to stand for some certain points of view and have a dialogue with each other. It helped us to become more brave in a public speech.

•At 1:00 we had our lunch and next we have also some of free time.Some of us went to the pool,others preferred to sleep

•After we continued with a lot of activities We had a dissemination session from another Cypriot team of the youth exchange that they participated. We've got a nice team building game and by the and of session they described us what opportunities in a youth work we have.

And also we got a session from the facilitators about Erasmus+ Youth Opportunities where we discovered verities of option that we have and projects we can take part at.

During reflection time,we had the opportunity to exchange observations about the saturday.We ended the day presented the Cypriot tradiotinal evening,it had dancings,songs and a lot of fun

Thank you all for this wonderful time and the change to meet new people that we get so closed

Day 7. Saturday 7th of October 

Until lunch we had a time to prepare final creative projects so we were divided into 3 groups and chose dance, theatre and art projects to present. The one of the team made a poster where participants described all the knowledge we've got during the projects.

The other team mixed Cypriot and Lithuanian traditional dances and danced them together using one song.

The last team made a small theatre play where they described each of the projects day using body language.

All the participants have done such an amazing job and we're so happy about it. Every group made a final videos which we presented to the group.

Then we've got a task for the dissemination activity and started to complete feedback form evaluating every single activity and project in general. And the final stage of the day is a YouthPass ceremony when we got a chance to say some nice things to each other and thank everyone for a project.