On 04-14 April, six DRONI members partcipated in a very actve, interestng and resultul Youth Exchange Project in Armenia. 60 young people from 10 diferent countries: Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia, Romania, Hungary, Poland and Turkey met in Yerevan to discuss and exchange on how youth is living in diferent countries.
The ten days internatonal youth exchange project My club, My space took place in Yerevan, in the capital of Armenia. Project was organized by Armenian non-governmental organizaton Federaton of Youth Clubs of Armenia (FYCA) within Youth in Acton (YiA) program. The aim of the project was to empower unemployed young people, to develop their skills, to learn how to manage, work and be leaders with youth in local youth clubs and to realize youth projects within the framework of YiA programs.
During the project partcipants presented their own countries, heritage, traditons, cultures, habits, languages and tried to teach each other. They also had amazing opportunites to visit many youth clubs in Armenia in diferent places, to talk and discuss about what is the main problem and challenges for youth all over the world, to compare diferences and discuss reality based on their knowledge, experience and best practces within local youth lifestyles.
The main actvites of the meetng were to develop skills and knowledge in order to be socially more actve. Partcipants had freedom in actvites which means they were not always guided but remained more fexible. They presented topics on as they wished according to their own reality. For instance, they made fashion show to present their NGO and in this way they described the spirit of organizaton.
Also, partcipants made short video, where they are dancing and enjoying being together: htps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWNPJPIxk8k.
May, 2014 DRONI News Droni rules, not the kings! Hot news: Youth Exchange Projects Youth in Action Training Courses Human Library in Zugdidi A bridge between Georgia and France: The Tbilisi Sea School and Chteau Des chelles intercultural exchange project In this number: Youth Exchange Project My club, My space 1 Human Library final event in Zugdidi 2 Youth in Action Training Course: Young Leaders for Positive Change 2 Youth in Action Training Course: Act For Youth 3 A bridge between Georgia and France: The Tbilisi Sea School and Chteau Des chelles 3 Youth in Action Training Course Lead for a Reason 4 Feasibility Visit Building Bridges for Future Cooperation 4 2
Human Library fnal event in Zugdidi
HUMAN LIBRARY IN ZUGDIDI The Human Library was organized by the youth NGO Droni in collaboraton with the US State Department American Corner. This cross cultural experience with Human Books took place on April 26 at American Corner in Zugdidi.
Two months of hard planning by European, Georgian and American volunteers accumulated with that eventul day. A total of 12 human books and 20 local volunteers, including some from Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia partcipated. There was a wide range of cultural and natonal diversity: Czech and Estonia Republics, Germany, France, Georgia and the United States.
Human books are basically those who have a unique and personal story or perspectve to share; in this case- from a cross cultural and generatonal standpoint dependency.
They come from all walks of life and ages, including IDPs and physically disabled.
The communicaton was two way, and books also asked questons and shared their understanding of local concerns. Some examples included a young business man, Pagan, HIV actvist, social worker and various other cultural backgrounds and beliefs. The program paired these volunteers with a local Georgian volunteer to aid in translaton if needed.
A total of 69 registered readers sat down with the partcipants and shared personal experiences and outlooks. All together more than 100 partcipants atended the event, including members of the media and local TV staton.
The event aimed at allowing citzens to come and address common stereotypes and viewpoints. It allowed them to relate with people that they would normally not have an opportunity to meet in their everyday life. The cross cultural exchange gave younger and older Georgian citzens a chance to practce their English skills, and experience diverse and unfamiliar cultures. Partcipants were trained for the necessary skills concerning right leadership, meetng other partners, exchanging cultural experiences, and promotng citzenship and partcipaton. This training lasted a week and required a very actve attude from the partcipants as it was very intensive. Objectves of the training were: to make the partcipants understand the diversity of organizatonal leadership styles and mentalites; foster exchange of good practces within (European) cooperaton, strengthen partnerships between Youth organizatons. In additon to this, it aimed at ofering the partcipants advanced skills for (internatonal) projects; provide them with diferent methods for intercultural learning as well as inform them about the existent resources helping in planning, implementng and monitoring an intercultural projects while fostering capacity building and innovaton in the feld of internatonal Youth work and providing them with appropriate tools for managing the internatonal projects. From April 6 to April 13 Youth Associaton DRONI members Sofo Gogoberishvili, Eka Abalaki, Giorgi Kuxalashvili, Bela Belkania and Mariam Berishvili partcipated in the Training Course Young Leaders for Positve Change organized by New faces in Minsk, Belarus within a Youth in Acton Program. Partcipant countries were Georgia, Netherlands, Denmark, Macedonia and Belarus. The frst sessions included icebreakers and the welcoming evening which made it really interestng to fnd all about the cultures of other partcipant countries. During one week 24 young people were brought together to speak and discuss what is leadership, which skills are requiredin order to be a leader, what is organizaton theory and also have a great practce of leadership skills. The main aim of the project was to assist young people in Europe in gaining knowledge of the basics of leadership, exploring leadership in both non-governmental and governmental environments and obtaining skills of a leader. Youth in Acton Training Course: Young Leaders for Positve Change 3
It started as an idea for intercultural exchange and collaboraton based on informal learning. DRONI EVS volunteers Ioanna and Alice decided to initate a youth project between Georgia and France aiming at establishing connectons between youth in the felds of culture, learning and social reality of the two countries on the West and East corners of Europe. This was a fve weeks project between the french community centre, Chteau Des chelles in Ambrieu-en- Bugey, France and Youth Associaton DRONI in Tbilisi , Georgia aiming at linking socio- cultural realites between Georgia and France for alternatve educaton purposes. In the framework of this project, children created videos of self-representaton that they were shared with their fellows on the other side, completed parts of a map collage focusing on the two countries traditons and cultural life aiming at completng a journey from the one side of the map to the other with small stops of knowledge in the between.
Youth in Acton Training Course: Act For Youth A bridge between Georgia and France: The Tbilisi Sea School and Chteau Des chelles intercultural exchange project The Act For Youth Training Course took place from April 3 to April 10 in Tsakhkadzor, Armenia and it was held by Regional Studies Center. Partcipant countries were Armenia, Georgia, Romania, Spain, Greece, Ukraine, Turkey and Belgium. Taking into account the high rates of unemployment among the youth throughout Europe, the high rates of payments for the educaton and healthcare, the low standards of living in some parts of Europe the violatons of the social rights became very apparent and the need of protecton very urgent. The aims of the project were to promote the advocacy campaigns and non-violent actons, to tackle the violatons of social rights, to raise awareness on social rights, equip the partcipants with theoretcal knowledge and practcal skills on the topic, motvate the partcipants to act as civic actvists and agents of change in their local communites, enhance the network and cooperaton of the organizatons throughout Europe. The partcipants had opportunites to share their opinion about very dilemmatc issues; also they had simulaton process in human rights feld. The discussions and dialogues were like a guarantee of high knowledge about social rights. The last day was dedicated to visitng at frst Sevan Lake and then a capital where the partcipants had traditonal Armenian evening.
Children were also photographed and as a follow- up exchanged their photos with their fellows abroad in order to make a collectve collage of self-portraits by mixing up characteristcs whilst practcing artstc skills. The making of postcards for exchange of thoughts and messages between children as well as the rotatng cadavers actvity of drawings of fgures by multple children at a tme mixing up characteristcs and faces as well as origami and comics actvites were also in the framework of this project. All sessions aimed at making the link between the two countries even stronger. On May 1 we all partcipated in the concluding session of the project on youth exchange between France and Georgia sharing a presentaton with the children as a result of their own eforts and successful results. You can fnd the presentaton video here: htp://bit.ly/1lUlrh5
Youth in Acton Training Course Lead for a Reason An internatonal training course Lead for a reason took place from 24th March to 1st April in Ferrara, Italy. 23 partcipants from 12 partner organizatons were representng diferent countries and regions in Europe and outside it. The aim of the project was to empower young people with skills and knowledge to develop and lead internatonal youth and volunteer actvites, increase intercultural competencies, share best practces and contribute to improving quantty and quality of actvites under the Youth in Acton program. Additonally to leadership skills, the program included 3 learning streams on human rights, actve citzenship and partcipaton and sustainable lifestyles. During the training the organizers used non- formal learning methods. Partcipants discussed and planed follow up actvites, short- and long-term internatonal volunteer projects on the topics of human rights, social inclusion and actve partcipaton and European citzenship. The working language was English. The project was organized by NGO Icarus and its partners which were realized at natonal and internatonal level during 2014 and beyond, including those within the framework of the new Erasmus + program. At the project Georgia was represented by Ana Matcharashvili and Eka Abalaki, volunteers at Youth Associaton DRONI. One of the most excitng things about training was a day trip to Venice. The partcipants traveled 2 hours by the train from Ferrara to Venice and afer that they spent whole day there. They saw the world famous sights and enjoyed a short trip on gondola as well. The project ended on 31st March with goodbye party (the same day we celebrated birthdays of 2 partcipants) and the next day was departure date. From April 17 to April 21was held a feasibility visit Building Bridges for Future Cooperaton in the capital of Belarus, Minsk. The project was organized by NGO Educaton Centre FIALTA in cooperaton with the NGO A-net Youth forum (Anaset, Sweden).
The partcipatng countries were Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Belarus, Georgia and Armenia. Each country has sent two partcipants and the total number was 13. The partcipants from DRONI were Liako Gabisonia and Mariam Bibileishvili. The duraton of the project was fve days.
The theme of the project was European awareness. The projects aim was to bring together organizatons which had experience in internatonal youth work and exchange experiences and good practces in the feld of internatonal youth work and strengthen the cooperaton between European Union Member States organizatons and Eastern European partner countries.
Moreover, the main aim was to discuss and plan for future possible project within the new European youth programme among the partcipatng organizatons. The project was efcient.
It reached its aims and objectves. Partcipants could write their own project in cooperaton with other partner countries. Now they are all going to implement the projects, cooperate with each other and apply for the next deadline to get funded. So they went back to their countries with positve emotons and hopes that they will be able to implement their own projects and get more experienced.
Lets wish to all of us all the best.
Feasibility Visit Building Bridges for Future Cooperaton