Our last day of Youth Work for Equality and Unity project started with what has now become our typical italian breakfast—a full table of pies, homemade bread, and a rotating array of meats and cheeses. The morning session began with a dance-along energizer, testing our coordination and personal space at times, with a lot of fun and energy involved to kick start the last day at the best! Then we continued with an overview of the Erasmus+ program, a breakdown of the EU level information helped us to put our project more in the general perspective and framework of the overall project and to give an idea of the bigger picture. It was also empowering for the participants who might be interested in writing projects or starting organizations. Also, hearing CET Platform Italy’s path to establishing the organization by starting with an informal group helped contextualize the information. Not only that but we got a better idea of the “behind-the-scenes” of project writing, planning, implementation, and follow-up. We then proceeded into our final morning coffee break. By now, most participants have become accustomed to the Italian caffeine potency and on the last day an extra cup of espresso came in handy.
After the coffee break it was time for the final reflection and evaluation. But before that, we had a chance to energize ourselves one more time, the game was simple and easy but in the same time extremely funny. We also had a chance to enjoy the outdoors, since the sun decided to grace us on our last day. Standing in the circle the person in the middle had to guess who was ‘the director’ after which everybody else had to repeat the dance moves. There was one participant who went inside and has to guess who ‘the director’ is; continuing with music, the next energizer made us showing our care for each other by hugging other participants when the music stopped, in order to avoid getting a ballon from the person holding it.
Evaluation then started with creating a special pizza, which was drawn on a paper and divided into 6 “slices”: group, programme, food, accommodation, logistics, trainers; each of us had to put a symbol on each part of the pizza based on how satisfied we were with that aspect of the training course, the closer to the middle it was the more we enjoyed that part of training. After this exercise, we were asked to close our eyes and the trainer simulated and read the whole story of this training, to bring us through this great journey and let all our memories come back to our minds, speaking a little about every part of the timetable and events to put us into nostalgic mood and to remind us what happened each day. Following this process, we went back to the expectations and needs we had identified at the beginning of the training, and if, and how much, these were fulfilled or not, to finally share with the rest of the group what we would bring back home with us from this experience! It was a very powerful moment where all the feelings and emotions from the group made the atmosphere very positive and all the people very grateful for the sharing!
After few group pictures, we had the chance to spend the rest of the outside, enjoying the good weather and the company of our new friends. Some of us went on walks around the grounds and the surrounding area, others sat around the dining room tables, sharing stories, exchanging phrases in our respective languages, making plans for after the training course, and enjoying the last few hours we had as a team. Now we are getting ready to dance the night away at the ‘See You Soon’ party, sing along to our favorite international songs discovered this week, and looking forward to the new opportunities we gained here!
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