Ready, steady, youth encounter! The local groups organised by Mediencooperative Steinfurt (Germany) and DUGA (Ukraine) travelled to their project partners in Telsiai, Lithuania. Since all three organisations are big fans of wilderness-based experiences, the programme and methodological flow of the camp was designed according to the principles of outdoor education: maximum of nature, sport activities, physical challenges and other practical experiences.
It was the last of three international encounters in this programme phase of Generation Europe – The Academy. That’s why the main topic was time, which they have dealt with in three chapters: “The Past”, “The Present” and “The Future”. Read on for their exciting report on twelve extraordinary days.
Day 1 and 2: Arriving and Reconnecting
The first days were all about arriving, settling down and reconnecting with each other, as well as getting to know some new members of our groups. Since the youth encounter took place in the beautiful countryside of Telsiai, there were a lot of things to explore. For that the youth leader team prepared a quest, where participants had a chance to learn the location where the camp took place, as well as the trainer team, get to know the rules and household chores order, and of course, express themselves within different creative tasks. At the end of the day participants received the notebooks, which were the time traveling tools for self-reflection and processing the information they received during the day. We were coming back to these notebooks from time to time within the encounter programme so that in the end participants had a chance to collect all their thoughts and ideas from our common journey in one place. They were free to write, draw, do collages and pick any other artistic form of self-expression for that. We finished the first programme day by sitting together at the campfire and sharing the impressions about the day.
Day 3: New Adventures
The next days were about introducing participants to the topic of time and the first chapter of the encounter in particular, where they had a chance to reflect on their experiences in the network of Generation Europe – The Academy: how it influenced them and what internal and external changes happened to them within this three year adventure. It was a very touching moment for all the group members, including the youth leader team, because for some of us this adventure is lasting since the predecessor European workcamp programme ewoca³. It feels like the whole world was born during these years, so many things to recall with a smiling heart! Afterwards the participants created their own timeline and filled it with the happy memories from local activities and previous youth encounters. The final activity for the day was an intercultural evening, where all three local groups introduced each other to the cultural heritage, traditions and customs of the countries they are coming from. We finished this day super tired, but we had tons of fun!
Day 4: Visiting Telsai
Continuing the topic of “The Past” on this day, we went on the adventure to Telsai town. In the beginning we had a mega city tour, presented by our one and only youth leader/tour guide Vitalijus, and afterwards the participants were given a task to explore the surrounding in smaller groups by sensing the town by all 4 senses: taste, smell, sound and sight, and preparing a short report about their experiences in the end of the day. It was important for us to deliver a message of noticing the changes of time in the modern world, how it impacts architecture, infrastructure, society and people’s mindset. How the past forms our current ourselves, and how we can influence it. It was amazing to see how each group had an absolutely unique and authentic perception of the city, as well as to hear that our Lithuanian participants experienced their home town from a totally new perspective for themselves.
Day 5: Filming by the sea
That day we spent traveling and exploring the marvelous nature by visiting the Baltic Sea. On the go we had a creative task: filming a Bouts-Rimés movie, where the plot is split in four parts, and each group filmed their own one. In the end we had a nice and fun collage of one story, made by four different film crews. We finished the day by watching the outcomes of the creative task.
Day 6: Preparing for the Festival
The sixth day started with a new chapter: “The Present”. We started talking about the problems we face in the modern world and how we can already today do something positive to change the order of the things. Before the youth encounter started, we agreed that our partnership will take part and host the local international cultural festival “Open Kitchen”. So this day was all about brainstorming, arranging and working hard! Each local group had their own little station to present a cuisine and some cultural aspects, as well as to participate in an open microphone stage with individual and group performances. Long story short, there was a lot of space for creativity and a lot of responsibility. In the evening we were diving even more into Lithuanian culture by attending the open air historical museum and tasting traditional Lithuanian cuisine.
Day 7: Ambassador Day
We continued a tradition in our partnership with organising an Ambassador Day, a self-moderated activity arranged by ambassadors of the three local groups. On this day the programme flow was in the hands of youngsters under the guidance of our fellow ambassadors, to give them an opportunity to practice what was already learnt during Ambassador Conferences. In the menu of that day was: to finish the festival preparation, team building activity and mid-term evaluation. They managed it great!
Day 8: Festival Day
This day was fully dedicated to the Open Kitchen Festival. Participants were moderating the programme of the event, welcoming visitors and introducing the festival structure, performing on stage, working at their local group stations, cooking, grilling, arranging entertaining programmes for our younger visitors. And of course: speaking about Generation Europe – The Academy, talking to local media and municipality representatives. For this occasion even the former participants of the previous prorgamme phase came over, and it was a very meaningful exchange for our group to talk to someone whose life was highly and positively impacted by the programme, and to hear about those positive changes firsthand. Enormous effort was put into arranging this one afternoon for the local community. The participants had the chance to experience what it means to arrange an event, how to distribute time and resources, how to motivate the team and many more important tasks, that for sure will help them during their preparation of the European Action Week. In the end of the day we were celebrating ourselves and our success.
Day 9: Clean-up and Recreation
Ninth day of the programme was a break in terms of content: We were cleaning the space after the festival, rewarding ourselves for a good job on the previous day by swimming in a picturesque lake, and, of course, doing the evaluation of the festival results.
Day 10: Starting into the Future
The 10th day we started with the intro to the last chapter of the programme: The Future. We have built the bridge from how we can change the world for better now to the upcoming years of our partnership. And of course, it’s important to think that everything is interconnected and the time you invest today into doing something good will pay you back in the future. We distributed letters to the participants that they have written to themselves last year, and arranged a time for self-reflection to give them time to think about their path, and encouraged them to think about a message to their future selves. Afterwards, we proceeded with positive messages, not only to ourselves, but to other people: The participants prepared a theatre play about a problem in the current society that touches them most and then createed a motivational short performance for those who struggle. Without exaggeration, it was an enjoyable experience to participate and to watch! We finished the day as usual at the campfire, sharing the wishes for the future.
Day 11: Let’s stay in touch
The last programme day always has a farewell spirit that floats in the air. However, we arranged a brainstorming about how to stay in touch with each other. For that we will arrange thematic buddy groups and meet together once in a while digitally. For the evening programme we arranged a Cheeso Vision Creative Contest: Since Telsiai was famous for its cheese production factory, we created a stage for different dance and music performances, where the main prize would be a piece of cheese instead of a gold medal. The Participants enjoyed this joint celebration and finished the day by singing songs at the campfire.
Day 12: Goodbye, See You Soon
On the next day German and Ukrainian groups flew back with some broken hearts and the suitcases full of new knowledge and experiences. The adventures of our partnership lasted a wonderful twelve days.