Very fun 4th of July

Let's see, what can we say about this day... To be honest, it is always better to show than write, so that's why we decided to take you through this day with a few photos.
Today we had  interesting and productive day. Our time passed quickly with lots of activities and workshops that we all liked.

It is always nice to start the day with an energizer. This one woke us up, made us laugh and it made our day productive from the beginning.

After that it was time to get into the topic of the photography and media. We had the best time preparing the activity and we did them with a maximum dedication.You can see below some of the groups presenting their final products of the media workshop

  

Some of them represented a wedding, with the message not to trust the media and what it represents

The others represented the gender "equality" in the workplace

And a third represented the workers raising their voice for their rights

Stefan - a participant from Macedonia - had interesting presentation named "The importance of photography in the media"

We also learned about the techniques that media uses for manipulating the people. 

  Teamwork is our best weapon...

  Our facilitators are always here to motivate us and give us  "food for thoughts"           
       

                     

To sum up, the day has ended and we are going to bed with a great impression, It was a day worth remembering.\Greetings from\Sicily!

the 2nd of July - HUMAN RIGHTS AND HOW TO BE A VLOGGER

As usual, we started the day with an energizer conducted by Tomi. The topic of the morning was about Human rights. 

The first workshop was to play a role game where you are another person and to understand how society see you or the opportunities that you can have only for your origins or your social status.

We continued talking about something very connected: the human rights.

We need to make a poster about one of the rights of the list of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and later we need to do a performance representing this right without speak.The rest of the group have to understand the right that we were playing and discuss if it was well represented, the way to do, our own experiences related to it…

Afternoon started with another energizer directed by Carlos and Dani from Catalonia:the cleaning team energizer, perfect for fight the heat!When we have finished we started the topic of the afternoon: How to be a vlogger?. Firstly the components of the group of Estonia explain us what is a vlog. Secondly we make teams to record a vlog to represent one of the articles of human rights. In addition we chose a topic of list of human rights and we recorded it. We also saw the videos and do a little reflection on about it. The result was so good and we have a very good time with some fun proposals

Finally we conclude the afternoon with a meeting talking about Erasmus Plus Programme.

The 1st of July - Stereotypes, Prejudices & Media

The 4th day of the Youth Exchange “Intercultureality” was dedicated on stereotypes, prejudices and media. 

To start our day off, Portuguese participants prepared a simulation game to find out how participants would act while stepping into another’s shoes. An International  discussion was followed after the game and different possible solutions and reasons were figured according to the given topic

Afternoon was started by bringing out what prejudices and stereotypes the participants have had felt about the 4 topics- women, men, disability, dark skintone. Participants brought out their own experiences, thoughts or opinions that had reflected in media. It was followed by discussion where the forming of prejudices were discussed and how society and its idols influence us.

In the evening we compared the differences among partner countries to analyse regional aspects that vary among each other. How the different regions (towns) of each country may vary. In conclusion we found that people tend to find more positive sides about themselves and negative sides about others and everything that may seem strange in the first place. That is also one reason, what forms cultural barriers. At last we valuated several photos that have been published in media. Whether the pictures were reflecting usage of stereotypes and in witch way. How media controls our opinion about social issues, forms stereotypes and how it leads us to buy certain things by unethical ways.

Day 7

Today is the last day and even though we were already feeling nostalgic of our leaving , we have managed to work together on many topics .

After our traditional energizer , presented by Marcella . Some persons have presented some activities to the rest of the group so they could use it in the future if they would need it .Nami and Arta presented an activity "Tephons and Riphons and Riphons and Tephons" , an activity designed to break the stereotypes .  Then Marcella presented a really funny game with chairs when the people had to find a common strategy for the person standing not to be able to sit for at least a minute …. And it  wasn't as easy as it sounds like . Kevin then presented some ideas about how to used maps differently as a tool to communicate with refuges and to break stereotypes .

Farid and Cyrielle  have explained a game called "Abigael", this activity can be used to show that we all have different values , and they then presented a video about french stereotypes .

Mihaella has shown  us a funny stand up video to finish this first part of the morning in the best way .

After, we had to work together to find out what is Erasmus +  and what are the projects related to youth , it was a good way to discover all the possibilities and a good remember for those who already knew about that subject .

At the end of the morning , David has shown us our human right posters that we will have to present for the ,last 12 month . they look quite good . ;)

After  our meal and a lovely energizer ;) .  We have (re)discovered what is youthpass and each of us was trying to  self asses  his  learning week to know better how to fill the youthpass once at home..
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The second part of the afternoon after another really nice energizer and an orange,  we have filled the final evaluation form of the training .

And on after the other, we have got our  youthpass from another participant which had described the person which will receive it without saying the name . Some didn't understand the rules ( like me  …) and said the name directly . It was a nice and touching way to finish this week of activities .

We are now looking forward to join the other and spend this last moment together.

Thank you to all the InformGiovani team, for your energy knowledge , smile patience and good moments .

thank you to all the participants for this time shared together and being the persons you are !!!

we hope to see you soon and we wish you all the best for your future.  

Day 6

This was the day when we really got down to business as we thought of specific activities that we could do in our countries.

We started off with an energiser where pairs were created at random and where one pair was selected to do a human statue. The rest followed and the results were quite funny.

We then split into groups of five and did some hard work on many very good ideas on how to spread the values that this training aims to advance. One idea, for example, was to teach young people aged 15 to 19 about arguments and fallacies in the context of media stories about the refugee crisis. Young people would learn how to recognise good arguments and also know more about the present crisis.

Another group thought of an activity about cultural differences. It was meant for youngsters aged 14 to 18. The main point was for young people in the Balkans to discuss more about other cultures in the Balkans.

There were three other groups, all with inspiring ideas that were presented to us.

The second energiser of the day was a hand massage therapy and a quick slap-the-hands exercise after that. It’s good to have some activity for your hands in a week where you don’t have to do any manual labour.

Our second assignment for the day was to think of a campaign on one of the issues that we have discussed. We were split into four groups, each came up with an idea. One idea was to have a poster campaign with different human rights promoted. There was also an idea about a website of positive intercultural experiences. One was about a no-to-racism campaign using us (the trainees) to spell the word “NO”. The fourth offer was a “Think Before Sharing” campaign aimed at getting to know better media stories that people share on social media. The winner, in the end, was the poster campaign. We would do twelve pictures promoting twelve different human rights.

 The third energiser surprised us with socks and chocolate money. It brought out the materialistic side in all of us, as we all are very hungry for chocolate, whether in the form of Euro coins or in any other way. Some people had both their hands in socks, some just one. I any case, it was reassuring to know that the socks had not been used before.

In the beginning of the second part, we were all assigned one person to observe during the day. The final part of the day was giving feedback to our fellow trainees. It was very warm and positive, everyone went to dinner with smiles.

You can now find us at one of the bars in Sferracavallo!

Day 5

The weather was with us since the morning, so Mariana decided to enjoy it at the maximum by stretching out side by the sea. Everyone had a move to share. What amazing working conditions !

Therefore both our body and mind were ready to learn and work on Media Education. We all shared thanks to open questions in small groups and we concluded all together.

After lunch everyone had its own priorities : for some of us it was swimming and other ones went for "siesta"!

The afternoon begun at the best  way, we made our own "project"(videos/photos)  to discovered the techniques of propaganda!

At second point we had discussions about  how to promote a intercultural tolerance, first we had a general approach and then a particularly and specifically points of view on real issues in our own work experiences.

Beijo, bučas & bisous !!!

Day 4

Human Right:

The morning started with a nice storm, was raining during some time, but allow us to do the energyzer and start the morning activities about human rights.

In the first activity in the morning we needed to draw a flower ,related to our needs, later on we connect with the human right.

In the floor we founded a circle of Human right, we had the time to walk around and read all of them and to reflect and connect with the flower of needs, after the group was divided in 4 small group, each of them needed to choose 1 of the human rights of the circle and to create activities to promote this rights, after we present to all the group.

One of the group went 1 step more and realise a nice exercise where we needed to choose between hate speech and freedom of speech.

In the afternoon we had the free time in Palermo, where the people in 2 group discover the reality and the culture of the city.

We had a nice dinner in a small restaurant, where we feel each other very very very close :), we had the opportunity to try different traditional food from Sicily and to listen and street music from the motorbike.

We came back to Sferracavallo full of emotions, impressions, feelings bud very tired.

Day 3

Here we are again, the third day started.
We started the day in a good mood especially after the yesterday´s International night. And there is no chance to start in bad with this great group here.

Firtsly we started with two good energizers, 1,2,3 and Running sound.

After that we had the main workshop"Step forward", it was the workshop about discrimination where we don´t look behind us but we look only ourself and just how to reach the goal.
After the activity we had a discussion where we were talking about  the activity and how do we feel in reality when we face with these kind of discrimination.


After that we had lunch and we ate Risotto and salad.

After the lunch somebody of us had a swimming dayyy.

We started the afternoon with energizer "Find your Garage", where everybody of us had fun.
Next activity was about the stereotypes and prejudices, where we talked about the diferencies between them. We watched a good video where we find out  what exactly means discrimination and how should people with disabilities be treated.

After that we had energiyer "Game of trust".

And here comes the best part of the day, LET´S MAKE A MOVIEEE....
We formed five groups and each of the groups made their movie.
We had five different tasks and at the end we had veryyyy interesting movies.
From Media Education we can conclude that it is very important to make publicity to the project or the activity we are doing or we are planning to do. For one good publicity we should answer well the "5W and 1H".

At the end we are greeting you with one special photo.

Have a pleasant night from best team ever.
N.K.F.S

Day 2

So, the second day arrived. After the breakfast we had a little energizer, just to wake up our body.
Our friend Ciry gave us the papers with the tasks for the game "The murders". We have to play the game during the whole time we are here.

The first activity we had for this day was "Mission impossible". We were divided in few groups and each of the group had a question about different topic which we needed to find an answer. The questions were about us: our skills, sports, languages we speak, music we listen,  common values, food we like the most, the country which the most far away from Sicily and the country where we lived abroad.

After this activity, we were divided in our national groups. The task was to present the intercultural reality in each country; what are the problems tackling discrimination in each country and what activities each country in undertaking to solve these problems (national and local level).

Before the lunch we had one role game - Alien Planet. It was very exciting and fun game, we played roles and got to know how difficult is to maintenance our own culture and habits, while respecting the others and learning how to cohabit.










After the lunch, we tried to find common definition of culture. All the groups had their thoughts about the topic and was fun to hear the presentation and the ideas. The most fun part and the part that left the biggest impression form this task, were "figures" we made with out bodies trying to present what culture mean for us.

The energizer

At the afternoon session we also had a role playing activity. The groups had to interpret some conflict situation with dialogue. All the groups had a different ideas, and were presenting different situation. This role playing activity helped us to got to the point of the afternoon session, which was to learn how to deal with this kind of situations in which we can all find ourselves in every days life. The discussion we had after was real good reflection and by shearing experiences we all learnt new things and how to approach the problem form an other point of view.

At the end of the day we sum up our thoughts on all the activities we had, expressed our opinion on the topics and gave suggestions how to improve the activities and how to get more from the project.
It was a successful and day full of new knowledge.