Introduction « Projectplanb’s Weblog

January 2, 2008, 10:16 pm
Filed under: Introduction

FINLAND

The organization behind Plan-B is Käpylän Yhdyskuntaklubi ry, that has been active in Finland for many years, therefore we have excellent contacts with the local media which will make it possible to give the results of the programme to the wider audience, also there’s a youth magazine called “Kapylän Sanomat” published 4-5 times a year, which is quite widely read within young people.

Behind Käpylän Yhdyskuntaklubi ry is Heikki Takkinen “Grand Old Man of youth work”. Heikki has been a vital ingredient in our international soup. This year the Finnish group is a mix of old and new blood, enthusiastic people ready to hussle!! Our group represents Finnish youth around Finland.

Henri alias Hemmo (25) project manager, took part first timein YOUTH project 2006 in Slovenia. He fell love in international exchange and since Slovenia he has been working to get the action in Finland.

Salla (20), History student from University of Helsinki is Finnish group leader. Salla has stressed about the camp more than anyone else, but without this stress and ass kicking there wouldn´t been probably any camp at all.

Tarmo (25) studies International Relationships in Tallinn (as does Hemmo too) and is a first timer in a camp, so be gentle!

Ella (20), is a sparkle in the dark, and a loud one too. Ella earns her bread in a fancy cafe, selling the most delicious cakes.
Elina (20). Elli has been part of YOUTH (now YOUTH in ACTION) since Haapsalu camp in 2005. Elli is a freshman studying Geology in Helsinki Uni and has talent with circus skills.
Marja (20) is going to raise the hopes of Finland in future, because she is studying for teacher in University of Helsinki. Marja also knows that camps are for winners, because first time she took part in Haapsalu camp.
Jussi ( 22) is our reinforsment from Turku. Tall, dark and handsome. Is familiar with the Youth in Action projects since 2003 in Castellbell i el Vilar, also participated in camp in Haapsalu in 2005 and in Meriharju summer 2007.
Veera (20) brings in some new blood with her vivid nature.

GERMANY

Our German group 2008 is totally new and didn’t know each other yet personally before the camp. We consist of people around Germany: Hannover, Mannheim, Berlin and Woltersdorf. Our group as such has been in this co-operation since the beginning in 2001, but this year our long-time leader and project guru Dirk has left the group and changed to new tasks, so this is the first time German group is run by the young people themselves and it’s a big task! Everybody was really interested and happy to get to possibility to participate. There are only two girls in our group but as everybody knows there are existing only gentlemen in Germany So who are we?

Theresa is an 18 years old girl that just wants to finish school, working in youth press of Germany and would like to study politics or media management. She’s a coffee junky who keeps her body sportive with badminton and bicycle tours. She’s from Hannover.

Jenni is a sweet and pretty dancing queen that finishes school next year with real good results of marks. She was the first of us who participated in the youth exchange (Berlin in 2005) and looking forward to the project in Finland. She’s from Berlin.

Manu has finished school already in 2006 and would like to study film on a masterhead university in Germany. He’s also a musician who makes rap and electronic music while all his friends try to think about what he tells them as fast as he talks about it.

Bent is a friend of Manu, interested in sports, art and meeting new people around the planet and spent one year in the USA. He hopes to start an apprenticeship in February 2008 in marketing communication otherwise he enjoys jobs he doesn’t like.

Paul is a rock and indie listening political science student with a view to visiting the whole world first and conquer it afterwards. Especially he wants to meet people from other EU countries and exchange ideas and experiences.

Tim studies together with Tim political science at the same university but is also a party boy who likes to sing although he’s not appropriated to; apart from his aim to become a politician he got a fable for acting that actually belongs to politicians, right?

Florian is triple happy; to be the group leader this year, to know so much cool and smart people and hopes to become that cool as they already are; he’s in love with Estonia, wants to become a great producer and film maker and the most important things for him are his friends. He has taken part in youth exchange in Haapsalu (Estonia) 2005 and Lendava (Slovenia) 2006.

SLOVENIA

Hello from Slovenia! We are group of six completely different characters, different backgrounds and different experience. We have only few things in common – we are all looking forward to meet new people and we are all from Slovenia (a small country that looks like a chicken).
In historic view, our nation has always been a part of a larger integration (so you can say
we’re used to get along with others). We are not very familiar with nudism, but we hope that after all sauna visits we will not put any clothes on anymore.
From all above follows that it’s almost impossible describe us as a group, but you will meet us soon. And once you meet us, you’ll see that not everything that comes from a chicken, tastes like a chicken. Photo, from left: Sabina, Matic, Matic, Mateja Tina, Andrej.

Wishing you nice holidays and hug,
Mateja

ESTONIA

Kukimuki is a friendshipgroup formed in 2004 by the Estonian Youthwork Departement (www.entk.ee) for a project in Berlin: “European Collage”, summer 2004. This was the beginning of co-work of 10 youngsters from around different parts of Estonia and 2 groupleaders. By now, the group has grown in numbers, as we organized an international youth exchange in Estonia in summer 2005 and have also participated in numerous projects around Europe afterwards. With every project we give more young people the possibility to experience being part of a youth exchange, travel abroad, see other cultures and practise different languages. We are all students in university, secondary school or still seeking for something and we are also connected through the strong interest of modern culture and society around us. We have regular meetings around Estonia to watch films, visit cinemas, concerts, art exhibitions, performances; also individuals of us participate in different art projects, do performances etc. So who are we this time?

Karoli is our group leader who is a fanatic of travelling and is doing a lot of volunteer work for Estonian Red Cross Association and works at Youth Cafe of Tallinn, volunteers at different youth fairs and activities and also manages to go to parties and high school. Duracell! She’s taken part in several youth exchanges and also organized them.

Kristin is a sculpture student in Estonian Art Academy, likes fairytales and travelling and is the free spirit of our group: ) Kristin is a new member of our group.

Hannes also studies sculpture, but besides that he manages to explore wines, music, books and films. Wait til he does his triple-salto-thing or beatbox! Hannes has previously taken part in a CBC project in Hungary in 2007.

Henri studies dance in Viljandi but somehow he manages to be at every important festival and know all the girls : ) He is ready to take part in any action (dj, vj, interactive movies, performances, exprompt trips to other countries etc). He’s just always ready to GO. Henri has previously taken part in youth exchange in Meriharju in 2007 and in Clermont-Ferrand, France in 2007.

Mihkel is a painting student in Tartu and is one of the most relaxed guys we know. And he knows “The Family Guy” theme by heart. Mihkel has previously taken part in a CBC project in Hungary in 2007, Meriharju’s project in summer 2007 and in Clermont-Ferrand, France in 2007. Yeah, he’s relaxed allright:)

Henno is our nest egg! He’s brother of Heiki and EVERYONE knows Heiki (Haapsalu 2007, Lendava 2006). Well, now it’s time for everyone to know Henno cause he’s now in town! He’s fond of photography and music and you just want to hug him. Urghyeah!

Helen is just a bit mad, but that’s ok. She has her happypills with her: ) She studies audio-visual media in Baltic Film and Media School, is nuts about good cinematography and experimental shaite. Has taken part in international youth exchanges since 1999, also in Berlin 2004, Haapsalu 2005, Lendava 2006 and Meriharju 2007.

ROMANIA

This year Romanian group comes mostly with people that already took part to past projects, but also has some new faces. We are all living in Bucharest and some of us were friends from many years. Every one of us likes to travel and to learn as much as possible about other cultures. Let’s see who we really are:

Radu(24): at the last minute he was very close not to come in the camp, the reason is…he’s feeling fat, so pls convince him he looks good. He’s studying architecture since he can’t even remember when and he’s very found of his bike.

Iolanda(24): is Radu girlfriend (sorry guys L). She finished this year her studies at the Architecture University. First time she joined the group in 2006 and she loved it.

Tudor(24): even thought he looks very tough he’s actually a very nice and funny person. He’s a future ex-student at the Architecture University and he’s

passionate about riding bikes, he’s favourite trick is “free speed falling”.

Rudiana(26): wants to meet as many people as possible. Her passions are: horse riding, sky, fencing. Works at television as copywrighter.

Elena(24): she finished her studies as the Political Sciences University. She’s a friend of Rudiana and when she heard about the camp she fell in love with the

idea.

Cristina(23): enjoys this camps a lot, she only missed one since Berlin’04 – this summer here in Finland. She refuses to grow up and she loves to party. But she’s good to lead people, is her second time when she’s doing it with the group.

Andrea(26): is one of the new faces. She never took part before to any similar projects and she’s very enthusiastic about this year camp. Her passions are: photography and outdoor activities.

SOON TO BE UPDATED WITH SPAIN!

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Project description

December 30, 2007, 11:37 pm
Filed under: Introduction

Hello again!

Here is the project description as wrote in summer 2007. Some things have changed due to life itself, but more or less we’re keeping to this. In future we will also post a link to the official application itself so whenever You want to make a youth exchange, You can find one example from here. Please keep in mind every project in unique and different, so when You do decide to make Your own project, bring in a lot of fresh ideas and make a project, that is interesting for You and for Your teammates!

Project description:

the theme(s) and objectives of the project The aim of the project “Plan B” is to help Finnish, Estonian, German, Slovenian, Spanish (Catalan) and Romanian youth to understand their identities importance within EU, get to know each other’s culture and origin of their identity as single person and as part of society. The idea is to get closer to each other through investigation of our (different) cultural background. Also we wish to fight against prejudices and stereotypes, pressing rules of society, give the participants a possibility to become more open-minded in direction of their own identity and personality, other cultures and facilitate their interest for foreign languages. In the background of all the amount of info, that floats us on daily bases and the influence of that which concludes in things we’re supposed or expected to do or ways we’re supposed or expected to act makes it easy to forget the essential of ourselves and forget our identity and background. This is a project which will take a step beyond and analyze the situation through young people themselves, who find it to be a problem and try to find solutions to it. We are so used to stress around, not thinking whether it is actually good or wrong, whether we want to do it or not. We forget that we do not always need to follow the everyday rules or read fashion magazines. We forget if we are actually happy or sad and we forget that there are those, who do not even have possibility to eat every day. We think one of the reasons the situation within the youth these days is so, is because they are over float with the amount of info and commercials around them, strongly influenced by it and are confused about their identity and background. There are many things we forget daily due to that, but within all those blames, all those news and all that info float, we sometimes also forget who we actually are. Very often abuse of alcohol and drugs get involved. The Europe is united now and the richness of Europe is the fact that we are so mixed, so different, so full of very different cultures, religions, languages, people, ways of thinking. With this project we want to take time off and give young people a possibility to think of the questions of “Me and Europe”, “Me and my country”, “Me and my city”, “Me and my close ones”, “Me and… me”. The idea is to get closer to each other and ourselves through investigation of our (different) cultural background, different society around us. The fact that we all live in Europe or even in EU, doesn’t mean we all live the same way or have the same opportunities – not at all. So is it harder to be yourself and keep your identity clear in some countries than in others? Sometimes we are too afraid or too lazy and decide to use the easy way – “plan A” which is just following what needs to be followed to exist, to be thought of well. But what about that plan B with actually BEING, knowing who we are and where we come from?

the activities foreseen throughout the project for its implementation, including preparatory and evaluation activities,

For the first –from August 2006 until April 2007 most of the preparation work had been the discussion and writing of the project for applying on April 1, 2007, run by the Finnish group in co-operation with partners from all countries. Many of the future group members were involved in the discussion and writing of the project and will be even more involved within the actual preparation time. First we informed the youngsters we are interested in making a project in Finland summer 2007 and had brainstorming, put down dates, calculated estimated travel costs for summertime and other. Sadly we were not granted in spring 2007, but we still decided to try to organize a short camp in Finland. We organized a youth house in Vuosaari, Meriharju, which gave us a possibility to organize a week (July 22 – August 5, 2007) long youth exchange. We got quite some free food from different sponsors, also free technical support (computers, editing units, cameras, video tapes, musical instruments etc) , also common acquaintances who were interested in running some small workshops (video, music, circus performance) and we invited people from our partnering countries to come to Finland for a week from their own finances or find support from their local youth houses or communities to come together, prepare another project for applying September 2007 and discussing the topic of “Plan B”. The idea was young people to try to find financial support on their own for coming to Finland and everything else would be covered, and so it went.

About 20 participants arrived from Finland (6), Estonia (8), Slovenia (1), Romania (3), Spain (1) and United Kingdom (1), also volunteers for running workshops and helping out with technical questions. People were in a location surrounded only by nature – forest, sea, birds, fresh air and distance from city surrounding, that most participants have been used to. As more or less all participants were at adult age, we decided to see, how adults would handle the situation of having all possibilities (technical support, inspiring surrounding, free food etc) and even though at first it seemed rather impossible, as so many different cultures, ideas and thoughts had come together, soon people started cooking together, taking to consideration the amount of vegetarians or keliakis, cleaning up together, organizing games in the mornings or afternoons, having national evenings, musical evenings, sauna evenings etc. Also workshops were happening: 5 short films were produced. All participants had a freedom to choose what they’d want to show in their films and people really found a way to express themselves in the pure surrounding, away from social pressure, away from city environment. Also it was decided, we wish to organize a new camp in winter 2008 with larger amount of participants. It was a very important experience, as it was possible to get to know the location for winter very well, check the connectivity and possibilities (=logistics!), get to know what needs to be different and as Finnish group has never before organized an international youth exchange, it was a fantastic possibility to learn how things work in co-operation of different people from different backgrounds, most people not knowing each other in advance.

Now, after the project will be granted, the youngsters (NB! Most of the youth who participated in the summer exchange will help to prepare a new group to arrive in winter, so new people can experience the possibility to join a youth exchange) will do more research about the situation of society being influenced by mediums of media, info and other in their country on the level of friends, their local community, Europe – they will prepare several articles about the situation in their country which will be published in advance on our blog which will be opened for reading for everyone, who is interested, and participants will watch also films made by young filmmakers in their country connected to the topic before the exchange, share their emotions on that through blog as well; also we will have online TV-broadcasting; also they will prepare the national evening programme for the youth exchange, which will include whichever each group decides is important to introduce their culture. There will be division of tasks – in meaning that some from the group will be responsible for finding the cheapest tickets to the exchange place and making the itinerary, some will be arranging the health and travel insurance etc. Our group consists of young people who all have a part in the process. About the communication with our partners:

October 2006 – first discussions about summer 2007; Spanish partners decided to make the project
December 2006 – questioner about expectations, topics people are interested in, new ideas, brainstorming (questioner was sent to all previous participants of our previous youth exchanges)
February 2007 – news from Spain about being unable to organize the project; Finnish group is interested in organizing it in Finland
February – March 2007 – preparation and brainstorming with partners, writing the project; active communication through e-mails, finding a place for organizing the exchange, finalizing the ideas and timetables, agreements about dates and methods etc.
April 1, 2007 – giving in the application in Finland
End of May, 2007 – negative answer from NA
Beginning of June, 2007 – decision to organize a summer youth exchange with limited possibilities and small amount of participants; preparation work
July 22 – August 5, 2007 – a summer youth exchange in Vuosaari, Finland
August, 2007 – preparation for giving in the application in Finland; communication between partners and preparation process.
Mid of October, 2007 – answer from our NA
Mid of October – End of December, 2007 – preparation of the groups, research
December 1, 2007 – official start of the project; booking the plain-tickets
December 15-16, 2007– advance planning visit in Vuosaari, Finland
December 2007 – info meeting after the advance planning visit with the hole group, preparation work, discussing travelling itinerary, insurance, checking if everyone has valid passports/ID-cards
January 7-18, 2008 –youth exchange in Vuosaari, Finland
January-February 2008 – evaluation of the project, writing the final report
March 18, 2008 – official end of the project
Summer 2008 – continuing project in Romania or Spain (Catalonia) ?

in which concrete daily activities the theme(s) and the objectives will be put into practice and which working methods you intend to use,

The main theme and the applied methods and activities will give the participants a possibility to explore the similarities and differences between their cultures and themselves through spontaneous and also organized ways during the whole exchange. We want to give the participants a possibility to understand our both single persons and European identity past’s and present’s impact on our present and future life and culture – and also the opportunity to understand or think through for themselves, whether the preservation of our own single person’s identity or rather the preservation of a bigger community is more important – or they both are. The exchange is a lot about thinking through their own values within the topic, not only saying that “this is right and this is wrong”. Working with mixed groups with very different methods, games and mediums will make it possible for the participants to get an intercultural effect on the topic, will get a lot of information and knowledge from different point of views and have a possibility to have a look inside themselves too. And most importantly – this exchange will not only have an influence on their attitudes about this topic, but a whole experience of the intercultural learning dimension. Methods used throughout the exchange:

energizers (getting young feel more comfortable around each other, trusting)
ice-breaking games (getting young feel more comfortable around each other, trusting)
welcome party (getting young feel more comfortable around each other, trusting)
bonding exercises (getting young feel more comfortable around each other, trusting)
self-evaluation (analyzing the process on their own several times throughout the exchange)
infomeetings/evaluation (every day after dinner)
general evaluation (analyzing the activity, topic, methods)
discussions, round-table (getting more familiar with the topic)
open space (working on bigger ground with the topic)
anti-bias (working on bigger ground with the topic)
educational trip (visual compearences)
lecture & meeting an expert (additional information on the topic)
watching films & analyzing (additional information on the topic, analyze)
performances (getting familiar with audience, fulfilling challenges connected to the topic)
national evenings (compearences of different cultures)
workshops (medium of expressing opinion about the topic)
blogging (sharing the output to wider publicity through popular medium of blog)
TV-broadcasting (testing a new possibility share (audiovisual) information in fast and quality way of work online; also testing new hardware)
public screening and discussion (spreading the idea of the outcome and the work done during the exchange)

Also – thanks to the following points, the understanding of each other, other cultures, open mindness within youth will grow. The racism and inequality between different ethnicities and individual languages will become smaller.

The youth will be accommodated mixed up with different nations (about 8 persons in a room). The living in mixed groups will be an advantage for intercultural education and also getting to know each other faster in between the other activities indicated in the day schedule.
Activities of the youth exchange contain big dimension of intercultural learning. For example the exchange will contain very different methods, but mostly it’s all about working with young people from and about other cultures. The most passive of the activities of the exchange is the lecture about the theme – to get a more professional definition of the topic. It will be run on one of the first days of the project, but even there we will have an open discussion, possibility to raise questions. The young people themselves will be interculturally active very often through national evenings, games, energizers and other. As the number of the participants in the exchange is not too high, there is possibility to communicate to everyone during the days.
Youth will organize the cooking, cleaning up and other everyday activities in mixed working groups daily.
There is a big importance on the ice-breaking games in the beginning of the project and morning energizers as this will introduce the participating young people to each other in much faster and emotional way than they would get to know each other during the everyday situations.
There is a big intercultural learning dimension during the national evenings as all six countries will be introduced through games, national dances, music, food – evening full of interactive action.
Solving the problem of language, as all participating countries speak different languages:
third languages will be used for communication (English, French, Italian, German, Swedish etc); most of the participating young people have studied English as a foreign language in school;
using the body language (energizers, different games)

how you found your partner group(s) and how the group(s) will be involved in each stage of the project,

Now seven years ago, four European Union membering countries Germany, Finland, Spain and United Kingdom, decided to run their first international project together – „Everyday life of Young people in Europe“ ( 2001, August 4 – August 18, Berlin, Germany).
In 2002 the co-operation continued with a continues project in Finland – „AGA project: Art goes Ahtela“ (2002, August 4 – August 14, Turku, Finland).
By 2003 one of the partners – United Kingdom – left the co-operation, but others decided to go on and had another project „Cultural Meeting of the European Young People” (2003, August 1 – August 10, Castelbell i el Vilar, Spain).
2004 was time for big changes. Two new partners were invited – new EU member Estonia and then EU candidate Romania. „European Collage“(2004, July 17 – August 1, Berlin, Germany) took place and was a success.
2005 Estonian group members were more than motivated to organize a project in Estonia – bigger than ever. It was also a critical time as there were problems with the Turku Youth Department, who had been the Finnish side partner so far. At that current time there were problems inside of the Youth Department, many people changed and a new group was put together from Finland – a more independent group which has been now a partner since 2005. Also a new partner was invited – Slovenia. Project called “Equality: KUKIMUKI” (2005, July 8 – July 22, Haapsalu, Estonia) was in action! And now it seems there’s no wish to quit. Even though every year there are a lot of new people in every group, every group is becoming more and more run by youth themselves, not organizations behind them anymore and more and more are young themselves interested in running their own project in future.
Therefore 2006 was another year for another interesting project targeted on the topic of European Citizenship with all 6 partners – “European Borders” (2006, August 4 – August 18, Lendava, Slovenia).
As follows, the exchange for 2007 was firstly supposed to be organized be the youth group from Spain, but due to the local elections in their community, their organization decided to post-pone it for the next year and our group felt strongly interested in organizing the next exchange in Finland instead. And here we are organizing “Plan B” from January 7-18, 2008 in Vuosaari, Finland.

how the young people will be actively involved in each stage of the project.

The young people involved in the project are 18-25: some of them being unemployed, some studying in secondary school, some already in university. The entire group from our partnering countries includes very different people: couple of young persons, who are working or haven’t entered the university yet, some high school students and some university students. Some of them come from a normal financial background, some from families with less financial opportunities, drug abuse or broken families, therefore such things as travelling, studying abroad etc are not usual for most of them. We have thought of bringing together young people from different backgrounds as this lets us understand each other better and also give us a new perspective of things, give good and new ideas and very positive emotions and experiences for rest of the lives.Young people meaning participants are involved in each stage of the project: preparation, realization and follow-up.

Preparation

The young people are involved in every stage of the project. In December 2006 a questioner was sent around to all participants throughout the years to have a good overview what changes young would like to have in next youth exchanges, which topics they feel they need to work with more, which methods they would like to use – therefore we know, that everyone’s interests are being included and everyone’s opinion being taken into account – even of those, who are now too old to participate, but who have had time to understand the influence of these exchanges. Finnish youngsters have been coming up with the idea of the project, have been brainstorming about the day schedule, more specific methods etc – the group members work together putting together the project with all other partners through e-mails, MSN discussions and other. Also the manager of the project is actually young person himself as participated in an international youth exchange only for the first time last summer (in Slovenia). Also we had a summer camp from July 22-August 5, 2007 which gave us a possibility to spend time together and decide together what we wish to have in next camp as every countries representatives are also connected to other members, who will be participating in winter 2008. After the project will be granted, the youngsters will do research about their own social and society background, they will collect and watch films made by their countries young filmmakers on different social topics, they will publish an online blog, so they can share what they’ve watched with other participants (and all other who are interested) and thought about it and share a lot of information before the exchange even begins. All the youngsters will do before the exchange more research on their own background situation in the European cultural mixture. Also there will be division of tasks – in meaning that some from the group will be responsible for finding the cheapest tickets to the exchange place and making the itinerary, some will be arranging the health and travel insurance etc. Our group consists of young people who all have a part in the process. All groups are doing similar preparation work as Finnish. The Finnish group has a bit more tasks as the project will be run by them of course. Besides the similar preparation mentioned above, there is some more:

The Finnish group members will prepare their national evening and welcoming of other partners.
The Finnish group members will be running the morning energizers in the beginning. After some days (when everyone is used to how things are etc) already in co-operation with all other youngsters.
The Finnish group members will organize educational trip to Helsinki and lectures.
The Finnish groupmembers will prepare the mid- and final evaluation sheets questions in co-operation with groupleaders and other countries groupmembers.
Will prepare all the activities, materials needed at the spot.
Will prepare the preparation visit meeting.

Realization

During the project all group members will be joining the workshops and other daily programme (topic openings, workshops, educational trips, national evenings, film nights etc). But also besides that all the group members will have their own tasks to be fulfilled. E.g. Estonian group members will be helping Finnish group members to do the waking up and energizers, Germans will be introducing the day-schedule, Slovenians will be helping out running the evaluations etc. The tasks in the daily schedule will be given out to different people so they will have the feeling of being responsible of something and doing something which influences other people in the exchange. Also cleaning up after ourselves, helping in the kitchen, washing dishes will be done by youngsters themselves – they will be living an everyday normal life in an unusual and very active situation. The stress is still on young people working with the topic, joining the workshops, on realizing their ideas, discussing the “being themselves” topics. We want everything to be well-prepared so young people do not have to start fussing about small things during the exchange due to what they might miss some parts of the programme. The hole realization is about the young themselves. There can be no realization without them.

Follow-up/evaluation.

Every day after dinner we will have an info hour which can also be called evaluation hour. It will take place every day so that people can talk about problems or what they like very much or what needs to be changed, also if they feel we’re close enough to the topic or they need some more stress on the topic in order to feel better etc, These kind of info hours/evaluation hours will give the organizers a good overview of the overall mood and feeling of the exchange and will give a possibility to react to problems fast. Also it will show all participants, that we are in this all together and organizing it all together: making decisions and choices together. The mid- and final evaluation and also self-evaluation sheet questions will be prepared before the youth exchange itself in co-operation with youngsters and group leaders (who have some knowledge about some questions that should be asked like logistics etc) of all partnering countries through e-mails. After the exchange group members will help to write the final report for the NA. On the second programme day of the youth exchange we will have an open circle of discussing the expectations of the youngsters participating in the camp. During the camp we will have a mid-evaluation, during which it is possible to give proposals about the needed programme changes or other. In the end, a final evaluation and round circle for open discussion. Anonymity will be guaranteed for the written evaluation papers. The mid- and final evaluation sheet questions will be prepared before the youth exchange itself in co-operation with youngsters and group leaders (who have some knowledge about some questions that should be asked like logistics etc) of all partnering countries through e-mails. Also self-evaluations will be carried out for youth themselves. As most of the evaluation of the project will be done during the exchange itself (including evaluation of the programme, topic, methods, logistics etc), after the exchange is finished, we will have an evaluation about the co-work after the exchange and the evaluation of co-work in that period.

Learning objectives

The goal of the exchange is to let the participants have an insight into their own position as a single person in Europe (Union member country) and as a member of the society and compare them; of Europe, where the spoken languages and cultures, behaviour and customs, religion and way of thinking differ even within one country sometimes very strongly. The activities based on informal learning techniques help the participants to recognize their own values, develop their abilities and skills in initiatives, tolerance, co-operation and adapting themselves into the community but before doing all that – they need to find themselves and the essence of being. We want to let them know the multicolour European culture and the importance of the cultural heritages left to them and – the importance of every single persons originality. All following points are accordant with the YOUTH IN ACTION programme priorities for 2007 and are achievable through the methods and activities planned. These points also show how the participants will develop personally

We wish to make young people more open-minded and tolerante about the diversities surrounding them
We wish to give all young people similar possibilities and include them in youth activity, no matter which sex, race, nationality, religion or other they are
For many participants it is a first time experience to organize and be part of an international youth exchange
Understanding cultural diversities
Reducing the amount of racism and xenophobia in our European society
Including young people with fewer opportunities
Awareness about the importance of European citizenship. We are making young people aware of the fact that they are European citizens, part of European culture with their own special culture. We find it important to discuss where is the future and situation of the every person identity itself within the European Union.
Development of the creative side of the young people, giving them a chance to express themselves about the topic through different methods and also mediums of art
Giving the young people an opportunity to come to their personal standpoints about their identity, their situation in European Union, about the need of protecting their idendity and culture
The project aims to the achievement of having a “Europe of knowledge”
Realizing the importance of cultural heritage
Stimulating the local community to appreciate the cultural heritage left for them and feeling interested about other cultures and future ahead
Learning to express themselves in front of other people (other participants, audience of the discussions, performances)
Encouriging young people in the exchange and young local people to start youth initiative projects
Our project is a multilateral project which will therefore give a bigger European value and impact as the exchange is greater. Also the partners are from different region of Europe – North (Finland), East (Estonia), Central (Germany), Central-East (Romania), Central-West (Slovenia) and South-West (Spain).
Helping young people acquire knowledge, skills and competence, and recognising the value of such experience aswell
There is a free expression to their sense of solidarity in Europe (and in the wider world) which once again will make young people more open-minded and tolerant
The project is promoting the diversity of our common European culture
Learning-practising other languages (Finnish, Estonian, German, Spanish, Slovenian, Romanian and third languages such as English, French, Russian..). We wish to encourage people to study and use more languages
Our youth exchange takes shortly also place in Helsinki (we will show our workshop outcomes in KinoKo13 and will visit 2-3 local schools) which will give the project even bigger impact as we influence several communities during a short time
Projects outcome will be introduced in local newspapers and local radios, but not only – also in Estonia (Youth Radio, Youth mailinglists which will include our blog’s link etc) and other partnering countries.

European dimensions

United Europe is not only union of economy and common security, United Europe stands for many other important things such as heritage of many different cultures, religions, languages, nature, history and different unique identities that Europe consists of, but also having equal opportunities, human rights and democracy. The youth are the ones who are the present and the future and through them we can make tomorrow more understanding. Throughout years with our continuous youth exchanges already more than hundred participants have been influenced directly and an unknown number of people through them. We do not wish to change someone’s mind, but give them a chance to see and communicate to other’s from around Europe, understand the values that our background, history and culture gives us and understand, that we are all worth of equal opportunities, no matter are we from Spain, Germany or Romania, from West or North, East or South.

Impact

The project has many ways of influencing the participants, but the main goal is to let them find their own identity and their own “me” within Europe as such. Especially on the background of all the float of information, rules, customs around us. Throughout years we have also seen how very many participants have been influenced by just being in these exchanges and meeting all these people and living with them side to side – they have gained the courage to study new languages, visit new countries, work or study abroad and even start relationships with people from other nations, which had been always a rather impossible idea for some of them. The impact of being around with so many interesting young people as yourself from other countries and feeling the energy and understanding, not minding all those differences, is a great experience for the participants and will make them even more European Citizens.

The programme has many elements through which the local people can have connections with the participants and the whole project. The performances in the shopping mall, the participation in the programmes in Tallinn and Helsinki and the final lecture and screening aims definitely towards the improved direct communication between the participants and the community. The personal meetings will not only cause lasting experience for everyone affected, but will advance the local community to open out for foreign culture (even more). The local youngsters will get information about the youth policy of the EU and about the opportunities of Youth in Action programme through our blog which will also include TV-show style footage, film screenings and also the newspaper and free DVD-s which will be produced after the exchange and given out to young people in Finland, Estonia, Germany, Spain, Slovenia and Romania. Our wish is to explain our aims and our thoughts about the way how to be ourselves in this new European community through giving the public and the audience our final screenings and products. Käpylän Yhdyskuntaklubi RY has been active in Finland for many years, therefore we have excellent contacts with the local media which will make it possible to give the results of the programme to the wider audience, also there’s a youth magazine called “Kapylän Sanomat” published 4-5 times a year, which is quite widely read within young people. About our partners – they will be spreading the word and different materials in their home country and hometowns/villages and through that even more people will be influenced. Most of them have very good contacts within their local community youth newspapers, youth houses, magazines, radios. E.g. Estonian group is able to publish the outcomes in a youth radio (Noorteraadio), in youth magazine (Stiina) and promote in youth mailing lists. Also the Estonian group has thought of making a screening in Tallinn and Tartu afterwards in spring 2008 as well.

Inclusion of young people with fever opportunities

Many of the participants of the youth exchange do not have enough of financial possibilities; for them the participation in the project is a great opportunity to meet people of same age from different countries, cultures and see how they deal with life. Some of the participants of the youth exchange are uneomplyed or have quit school. About 10 of the participants come from broken families and we find it very important to bring this kind of youth, who in soon years will be having their own families, experience the positive feeling of easy communication between very many different type of people.

Protection and safety

All participating groups will be provided by a health- and travel insurance for the travelling and exchange activity period. Also those group members who have a valid EU health certificate cards, will be suggested to bring them along as they are valid in the EU zone (by the local regalement). There will be a first-aid kit at the exchange site, also there are several persons at the campsite who have been trained in first aid. During the preparation meeting all group leaders and one group member from each country will have instructions about fire escapes, emergency number and other important information and will be responsible of explaining it to their groups in their mother tongue. There will be a car always at the campsite, which means there is 24 h connection to the city in emergency situations. Before the actual exchange, participants will fill out information sheets about their allergies and medical conditions – all group leaders will be informed of them.

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