African day II

Today was in Green hours, and Piata Romana.

Our first street action !

Our first street action !

We participate in the African day presenting some street action in Bucuresti.
Tuesday 25th, Thursday 26th and Friday 28th, we participate in different happenings to promote MDGs concerning Africa.

We already appeared in different places like Piata Universitate and Piata Unirii.

Our street actions have one goal: to raise awareness of bucuresti citizens for some topics. In Africa, even if it's far away from daily problems of most of them, too many people don't eat enough, too many don't have any access to medical treatment...

So, for that we present a short street theatre play connected with MDGs.

We distribute balloons with messages connected with Africa about the 8 MDGs.

And our last action is to write Loesje creative text writing with Chalk onto the pavement in the places we make our theatre play. Our text will stay a while, some persons will see it and maybe they will think about it ? !

Our first spectators were passing by, some stopped, a few had a small conversation with us, for them we keep in touch. But anyway, we'll do it again in different places, and for sure reach more people !

And for the few we are in this big city, we do our best to help in our way !

Tresure Hunt with school nº 5

Today, finally happened the treasure hunt in the park with our children at school nº 5.
They are special, they are different and their difference is what I love.
The day was hot and the sun was burning.They arrived in the park,and they made us felt it.
The treasure hunt has followed and they behaved very well, easily found where the messages were hidden inside the bottles.In the end we made an activity of consolidation, we opened the bottles and read what was inside.We present the objectives of MDGs, eight goals and each team had to find four.
Between poverty, environmental problems, infant mortality, access to education ... we try to make them understand that they are lucky because they have the basic conditions.
Our hope is that they feel touched to protect and be attentive to the problems of the world and that they don't will not feel alien to it ... because it is a problem of everybody.And little things can help.
The message was passed and it was a good time seeing them outside of school, free to run through the park... or rolling around the grass!
It's so good being a kid!

AFRICAN DAY AND WEEK!

Program:

Tuesday 25th of May 2010:


* Street actions 2pm just at the end of the conference:
- Chalk writing: Loesje texts
- Flyers distribution with balloons
- Statistics demo about Africa (street theatre)

Wednesday 26th of May 2010:

Open doors in Green Hours Jazz Caffe from 5pm: photo exhition, Adrican dances, Painting, little market, African food.

Thursday 27th of May 2010:

Open doors in Green Hours Jazz Caffe from 5pm: photo exhition, Adrican dances, Painting, little market, African food.

* Street actions after 5pm
- Chalk writing: Loesje texts
- Flyers distribution with balloons
- Statistics demo about Africa (street theatre)


Friday 28th of May 2010:

Open doors in OFRR house, Calea Dobrigi #57
little market, African food.

JOIN US!

EVS presentation in Miercurea Ciuc's High Schools

Our project is an EVS: European Voluntary Service.
This project initiated by the European Union is open to every young people between 18 and 30 years old.

One of our task here in Romania, in common with all the EVS, is to promote this program.
For this we 've been to several high Schools during our visit in Miercurea Ciuc.

We've presented a PPT of our vision of EVS, admnistrative points, how to apply, what is EVS, what is not, etc.

To know more about the EVS Project click here !


Actually, at the beginning, our presentation was very boring, in myopinion. We just read the slides like robots. Mainly because we didn't want to loose important informations but also because we weren't used to speak in front of 40 or 50 high school's student !

After a few presentations, our presentation became more and more efficient, our group became more self confident and we changed our introduction. For example we asked for the student to put their chair in circle to speak about their project in the future, travels, volunteering and why not applying for an EVS ?

This way permitted us to speak more freely and also to make connections easier with them, avoiding the "Teacher - Student barrier".

The fact is that after 5pm, we had an other activity to promote EVS: the living Library - you can read more about it here ! And at this event we saw high schools students coming back to us to know more about us !

In my opinion we succeeded in making them curious ! It's already a great step !

EVS PROJECT

So, we are 6 volunteers from different European countries living and working together in Bucharest, Romania, for 6 months (April – September 2010). The fact that we are able to come together and live and work on a project without any cost from us is because we are participating in the European Voluntary Service. This is a project from Youth in Action and it funds volunteers from any EU country (and some volunteers from countries outside of the EU too, like Turkey) to volunteer in another EU country (and sometimes also countries outside the EU like Brazil or the USA). There are many different projects in many different countries you can take part in, you can search the database here: http://ec.europa.eu/youth/evs/aod/hei_en.cfm Not all projects are active all the time so it’s worth sending some emails to see which projects are available or if any similar projects are planned by the organisation in the future. Contact details are in the database.

Globe in the mirror

Our project is called Globe In The Mirror and its aim is to raise awareness amongst young people in Romania of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development through non-formal education and participative arts such us social theatre, street animation, video animation, photography and music and anything else we can think of. We create our own project using whatever methods we are interested in – ART Fusion are very flexible and supportive of us. We also participate with other related organisations such as FOND Romania and get involved with their events.

Additionally we aim to promote volunteering amongst young people and promote awareness of the EVS programme.

To sum up, the project Globe in the Mirror aims to overcame all language barriers and to raise awareness about global issues which are topics of considerable matter of nowadays society and to emphasise the importance of taking attitude (ARTitude!) in solving these problems.

Youth In Action

So, EVS is just one phase of the Youth in Action programme. There are many other opportunities available for Yoof of Europe and it’s all worth reading about in greater depth on the webpage: http://ec.europa.eu/youth/index_en.htm


Hannah

LIVING LIBRARY IN MIERCUREA CIUC

In Miercurea Ciuc (Csíkszereda) took place the Biblioteca Vie (Living Library) in a bar named Café of the four wise skinned (kávéház a négy bölcs sintérhez) the 4-5 and 6 of may.

In the living library you can “read” many living books like prisoners, psychologists, artists, photographers, teachers, american man, international volunteers, officers.. among others.

The living library works like a normal library but the books and the dictionaries are living people. You can ask all that you want and the books can give their own experience. For me it's so interesting because both sides are learning.

“It was really great! I could have read all the books, while I was making translation. I could read even books, which I wouldnt if I was a simple reader, for example the social worker. I found out things which really touched me.”

“Csaba. Dictionary of Living Library in Miercurea Ciuc”

It was three days very interesting. Attended by people of all ages interested in many things and i'm sure that they learned many things. For example, i spoke with a prisoner and his experience was so tragic and exciting. He will write a book and he found his own truth in jail. For me he was a really good person. I could speak with a journalist too and we spoke about the actual situation about general press.

It's so interesting to learn things from the experience of other people, it's not only the theory, but you can see what is behind.

I think that it's a good idea and i hope that other countries “copy” this concept to do it because it's also a way to talk face to face in the internet era...

To close the library event on the last day we had the concert of Dutevino (www.dutevino.ro) and it was so funny and we enjoyed a lot!
(: Lorka :)

Brasov

Finaly, we were in Brasov!
After our work in Miercurea Ciuc, we take the train to Brasov, and we´ve been hosted thanks to Couchsurfing, so we had a cheap solution in this town.
Was wonderful, discover a new city in Romania, totaly diferent of Bucuresti.
A town quieter, cleaner, surrounded by green mountains, which makes us want to loose by the streets. The people that hosted us in the city and made us a guided tour, was very nice, and they were with us, in many secret places in Brasov.
We had only two days, to walk in downtown and recognize what was local.And we done it, while some saw a festival of short movies, others climbed the mountain cable car.
At night, Brasov soothes even more, but we easily found the place where entertainment reigns, and we danced, danced until we leave the street where we sat, watching the stars and hear water running.
We were sleeping m, Fabienne and Giom in the same bed, but does it matter when we are experiencing a beautiful adventure in our lives, and comfort means nothing.
We left Brasov,by a train, and others by minibus, and the difference in hours to get to Bucharest is large.The team train, me, Giom and Lorka, we take four hours, and the team's of Minibus, Kristine and Fabienne, they take two hours and a half afterwards.
But the train trip is so fabulous and i not exchanged it for anything, i could talk, sleep, see unique landscapes from the mountains, which are unlikely to forget.
We will certainly return to Brasov, with more time to visit or maybe even work on some street action or festival.