All good things come to an end, and so did our Training…also the weather was particularly gloomy and rainy today, as our participants slowly started to gather and board the bus for the early departure. It was an amazing experience and despite the weather and the sadness of leaving the place that has been our home for the last 8 days, we didn’t lose our smiles, bringing back home all the good memories and new friends!
We are sure that all the learning, all the competences and all the experiences we shared will be very precious and will stay with us for long time, confident that we will meet again soon!
See you soon!!

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!

Today was the day that all the teams were implementing their own workshops, having the chance to put all the learning in practice. We met in the working room at 10 to make the last check point, have a final overview of the situation and decide the first group.
The group started with and energizer dividing the other participants in two groups and focusing on the importance of communication. The main activity of the workshop was an imaginary “Trip to Marabella”, where the Queen and the king welcomed the participants in their kingdom and tried to communicate with the participants according to the meanings of actions in their culture, without any explanation on the language used. During the debriefing, trainers of the workshop asked questions to participants regarding what they understood from the theatre and explained how actions might have different meanings in different cultures and pointed out the meaning of the actions of the king and the queen. At the end of the workshop, the Trainers of the course asked for feedbacks to the participants, to the training team in charge and finally evaluated the performance of the group.
Just the time to set up the space and it was already time for the second group and a new energizer. Circle was created and participants closed their eyes and then doctor and freezer were selected. Freezer was able to freeze the people and doctor was able to defrost them.  After the energizer, the activity that related with the LGBTQI+ rights started. They explained the meaning of each letter of the acronym and then they gave a task to the participants by dividing them into groups. The task was to make a quick research over the countries that they were given about the LGBTQI+ rights. After the research all groups shared the results and then countries were ranked according to level of respect and protection of LGBTQI+ rights in those countries. Participants discussed about the results and the ranking, and the trainers evaluated and commented on the workshop at the end.
The third group started with an energizer where participants had to act according to 2 different works: `prrrrr` and `pukutu`. If the trainer called out `prrrr`, all participants acted like a bird, and if the trainer called out pukutu all participants did not move.

The main activity that followed was about the relationship between human rights and basic needs, like financial security, family, health, friendship, (self) esteem, personal fulfilment. Participants created their own flowers with petals whose size was based on the importance of each aspect according to them; after that, to improve the smaller petals they drew leaves and wrote key words related to possible actions they’d need to make. At the end participants discussed the relationship of all topics and trainers guided the feedbacks and reflection.
After the lunch break the fourth group presented another workshop, where participants were divided in 2 groups for an energizer; they had to line up and the first person in the back of the line got a silhouette picture and had to draw it on the back of the person in front. The last person in the line said what was drawn on his back.
The main activity of this group was focused on migration and human rights, with a quiz which was giving the chance to the participants to take part in a game in order to boost their knowledge in teams. Participants were divided into 4 teams and they were provided with questions to reply within 30 seconds. Quiz was used to learn more about the current refugee situation, get more data and statistics, as well as encourage empathy and reflection. As usual, trainers asked for feedbacks from participants, from the team delivering the workshop and then gave suggestions for adaptation.
The last workshop was organized to understand the basic needs of humans with a special focus on refugees. Workshop started with a funny dancing energizer, then people were divided into different groups and tried to fit in a role of a migrant with different backgrounds and they had to decide, first individually and the in groups, the 3 basic items which they would take with them. The debriefing that followed allowed us to understand the different perspectives and meanings that each person can give to specific items and, on one hand, how difficult it is to give up on something important for us and, on the other hand, that we should always take into consideration other people’s needs. After debriefing, the trainers asked questions and discussed about the workshop, giving feedbacks and suggestions.
The day ended with a reflection where all participants shared their emotions and feelings about how it was the whole process of designing and implementing own workshops, as well as the group dynamics throughout such process; “blob tree evaluation” was used, and participants were choosing a character based on their feelings, sharing with the rest of the group.
It was a very intense day, but very productive and fruitful, with the whole group engaged and committed for a great learning experience!

After such a day, it was time to relax a bit and have fun by testing their knowledge in a pub quiz! Participants gathered at 9.30 pm, and were split in 5 groups; there were 8 categories and 2 of them were selected as jokers by each group. In the first section of the quiz, questions from “Movies/TV”, “Geography”, “Literacy”, “Random 1” were asked, while in the second section, questions from “Sport”, “History”, “Music” and “Random 2” were asked. The winner and the second ranked got a prize, but they all shared with the rest of participants, to enjoy the time together and show the group bond!
See you tomorrow!

The day started with the game of “music chairs” as an energizer  from the Hungarian team that warmed us up.
After that we gathered in a circle and we’ve been asked to think about the qualities that an ideal youth worker/trainer needs to possess to work in a non-formal and intercultural environment in the youth field. We were split into 5 teams and each one had to draw its character, identifying the necessary attitudes, skills and knowledge that would make that person a “super trainer”. A lot of creativity was put in practice to realize the drawings, and the discussion that followed was very interesting to understand the different perspectives and how different qualities can apply to different contexts, also helping us sharing experiences.
The second session, after the fruit salad energizer proposed by the UK team, prepared us properly for the next activity, which was the natural continuation of the first session. Following the previous sharing, a conflict management discussion took place; participants were divided into 4 groups and discussed with the other team members about personal conflict experiences, difficult situation that needed to be handled during the work with our NGOs, in other projects, with other colleagues and/or friends. A lot of interesting and, why not, also funny life stories were revealed, and each team was asked to choose the story that was the most impressive and make a theatre sketch based on it.
The different groups had 20 minutes to prepare their role playing, and they all came up with really creative presentations, where the audience was able to discuss after each sketch and express its opinions and possible ways to solve the issue, also replacing the sketches with more “appropriate” behaviours that would help overcoming the conflict.

The lunch break was the right moment to get back the important energies that we needed for the rest of our day, as it was finally time for us to put in practice all the  new learning from the past days.
The third session started with a dancing energizer from the italian team, after which the trainers divided us into 5 teams and gave us the task to prepare our own workshops for the next day. The preparation lasted until the dinner with two “checking moments” in which the trainers checked our progress of our workshops, if we needed additional support, and also giving some feedbacks on the continuation of the process.
It was a fruitful day that ended with the projection of the movie  “Parade”, a thought provoking movie about the LGBTQI+ community showing the story of the first gay pride in Belgrade, which further stimulated our understanding of how important is to always speak up and protect the fundamental human rights! Stay posted to see what our participants are going to do in their workshops!

On Wednesday 20 of November the bus took our 28 adventurous wannabe change makers to Napoli. Some of them delighted themselves gazing at the Vesuvio, while others tasting typical Neapolitan delicatessen such as: Sfogliatella, Baba, Casatiello, Pizza, in the land that gave birth to it, and some of the best coffee of Italy. 
It was a bright sun-shiny day and instead of our usual routine, gathering together in the activities room sharing out experiences and knowledge about human rights, inclusion and integration, we went to meet the people who make of this kind of experience their daily life. We were then ready to go to Casa Cidis, a multifunctional intercultural space managed by Cidis ONLUS, a non-profit organization with a long story of hard work and dedication to help migrants, asylum seekers and refugees.

As we entered, we were welcomed with splashes of bright colours: the courtyard had recycled garden furniture made from pallets and seats made from tyres, which created an inviting atmosphere for us all. We later found out that the migrants themselves created all these through workshops developed by the organization.
Elena and Ida greeted us for the presentation, and we started by breaking the ice to get to know the people working at the NGO. We got introduced to their activities, knowing that they work mostly with young people, providing accommodation and assistance through welcome centers, and they train and develop the skills of the migrants to either work within the NGO or support them in seeking further employment opportunities. This new initiative that they’re carrying out in Casa Cidis works as bed&breakfast to support the former unaccompanied minors from their centers and it is the first initiative of its kind in this region and it’s still in an experimental phase. They have 1 office and 6 apartments, renting 3 of them to tourists to finance themselves, while 3 others are used for workshops and laboratories; for now it is mostly rented to people that are already aware of their cause, but they are aiming to raise awareness to wider audience about the social scope of their activities.
We loved the passion that Elena demonstrated towards the migrants and her work in the NGO. It was inspiring and motivating to see her passion, which made us want to volunteer with such causes as well. We are also lucky enough to meet to Ahmed who shared his story of 21 old migrant from Somalia who has been living in Italy and hosted by the NGO since the age of 15, already speaking good Italian and learning through an apprenticeship new professional competences in Casa Cidis. He was really happy to be in Italy but still dreamt of going back to Somalia to improve life conditions there with the knowledge he would gain in Europe and create his own business. 

This was the perfect ground also to introduce to Casa Cidis and all our participants about a long term Erasmus+ project that CET Platform Italy has ongoing, a KA2 – Strategic Partnerships for Youth, which focuses on the social inclusion, integration and empowerment of young refugees and migrants.
The project is coordinated by the International Foundation for Y-PEER Development, Bulgaria, with us as partner organization from Italy, together with other three NGOs from Austria, Greece and Turkey, and it is tackling similar topics as the ones addressed through our project, by using storytelling techniques, online and offline, creating audiovisual materials and organizing local events in forms of Living Libraries, in order to build the capacity of youth workers and organizations in this field and to give visibility and recognition to young migrants and refugees who have positive stories of integration in the local communities.
The meeting was therefore also a great occasion to further network and advocate for the promotion of the culture of community solidarity towards vulnerable groups, and to start cooperating together also in other projects and local initiatives that will follow in the upcoming months, especially for the realization of the Living Libraries.

After that, Elena ended the presentation by showing us different educational tools that Cidis Onlus developed during different projects e.g. italian language book, board games and flash cards. The materials were all developed taking into consideration the needs of the migrants and the topics that would practically benefit the migrants the most. 
She mentioned: “ If there were no borders the world would be a much better place because the people will be able to educate themselves in the best place according to their potential and return to their home countries and share their new knowledge”.
We also had the chance to look around rooms that are rented out to tourist with the guide of Ahmed; also the rooms featured sustainability characteristics, as there were some lamps that were recycled from glass bottles and beautifully decorated.  It was then time to say goddbye and thank Casa Cidis for the hospitality and for the great opportunity to see this amazing reality and get enlightened and inspired by their actions!
Time to go back and start implementing the change! Follow and join us!

On monday 18 we started the morning session outside with the energizer “Castle and princesses”, taking advantage of the nice sunny day. After that, we gathered in plenary and we were split in 2 teams in which we had to find the way to accomplish our tasks; it turned out that the tasks were not conflicting and it was a first moment of realization of the importance of cooperation and mutual understanding.
Right after, in 4 groups, our task was to match different terms and words that we received with the right explanations, also applying multiple definitions for the same concept (for example “human rights”, “Dublin regulation”, “refugee”, “Universal Declaration of human rights”), taken from different official sources. Each group had 20 minutes to discuss it, after which we were sharing the results and making conclusions all together.
The second part of our morning session was dedicated to share realities and situations about human rights, minorities and migration in our Countries; we were divided into three groups and had a round table where we were discussing policy frameworks, data and statistics, violations and challenges in he different Countries, also talking about examples of good practices. It was really interesting to listen to the others and to compare different realities and experiences. We also had a discussion in plenary to wrap up the session, where we talked about the most interesting facts and the new things that we discovered.

The second part of our day we started with a new energizer: rock-paper-scissors. It gave us the right energy so we could focus for our first afternoon activity, the “Human rights timeline”. Each person received a paper describing one specific year and an event or document that was important for the human rights throughout history. We were then going year per year in plenary, explaining the meaning of each event and recreating the milestones that brought to the current framework of protection of human rights. The last part of the afternoon session was focused on the two main documents that are guaranteeing the protection of human rights: the “Charter of fundamental rights of European Union” and the “European Convention on human rights”. The trainers gave us few statements and we needed to decide whether they were true or false. For each statement, we had a discussion about our choices, debating our opinions and receiving an explanation afterwards, arriving to a deeper understanding of the two documents and their frameworks.

The last part of the day was the second intercultural evening, where participants from Turkey, Sweden and Germany presented their Countries with typical food, dances, history, fun facts, and stereotypes. It was a great ending of the day that made us feel even more enthusiastic about what’s going to follow! Stay tuned!