The Training Course „No more time 4 hate”, which took place in Torremolinos (Málaga area), Spain, between 24th and 31st of May 2018, was not just an occasion to interact with different people, but also an opportunity to „change the world”, as our participants told us.
The project’s atmosphere was dominated by tolerance and understanding the whole time, and not just because that was the theme of the project. When like-minded participants come together to talk about a certain topic, the results will follow. The 20 youth workers coming from Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Spain have not only exchanged ideas and practices, but they bonded as well.
As an added bonus, the location of the project was the sunny Málaga, the place in Spain that gets about 300 days of sunshine a year, the birthplace of Pablo Picasso. Just like he would do with his paintings, the participants have created their own masterpiece during the time spent there: a new mindset, a new way to look at things.
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| The participants to the Training Course |
Aspazia Olar, Marina Presecan and Robert Gabriel Tutoveanu: "All of us have a spark, a dream and a desire bigger than ourselves, right? Well, since you're here, you're young and you have this chance of being involved in changing the world, why not act? While participating in this Training Course in Torremolinons, Spain, we learned a lot of things. Many of them were about ourselves, but beside the personal experience and memories, we learned a lot about real-life problems, current issues and ways to counteract them.
We learned about cyberbullying. Did you know that trying to break into someone's account is considered a form of cyberbullying? Neither did some of us. Did you know that you have the power to report hate speech on Facebook and other social media platforms? Again, nor did we.
Those kind of activities are meant to take you from the outer world for a week, prepare you, give you some tools and after that throw you back just to make sure that as many people as possible get the message.
You can't contradict the fact that it's important being able to work with people from different backgrounds. Think about all your friends that work in big companies, full of people from all over the world. Well, if you want to be one of them, you will need to be able to mingle with other cultures, and one of the most important things in order to integrate yourself in this culture is not necessarily to be able to work with those people on important projects, but rather knowing how to say cheers in their language. (Please take this as a joke)."
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| Working as a team |
The hosting organization was Asociación Projuven and their efforts to create a wonderful experience for the youth workers has definitely paid off. One of the topics that they talked about was the No Hate Speech Movement, a campaign run by the Council of Europe that GEYC is actively involved in supporting too. Check out this post by Asociación Projuven!
Aspazia, Marina, Robert: "How many times have you had the chance to visit a new country with (hopefully) like-minded people?
Some of us not so many times, so an Erasmus+ project is the perfect solution for the burning problem we have. During this training we had the chance to learn, it's true, we already talked about that. Now let's talk about the culture, the people and the way other humans live outside our countries.
Spain is the country of people that love life, love hugs and are so warm they might infect you with this virus. Going out in Spain with some spanish people might transform you and you will come back home with a bigger desire to express your love through hugs. It's normal, it happens to the best of us.
You also learn about food. One thing is for sure: the italians were not pleased with the way Spain presented and cooked pasta. We don't blame them, in the end. But we blame spanish people for their desserts, that's for sure. We couldn't get enough of their Nastillas – that wonderful pudding-like dessert with cinnamon and biscuits – and of course, Flan.
I think it's for the best to stop talking now about food, since some of you might be hungry at the moment. We can go on and talk for ages about their way of enjoying life, about how beautiful life becomes when you start dancing flamenco in the street with total strangers and start asking yourself why you're not doing this everyday.
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Session on the beach
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After gathering all this information – of course, what is written here is only the smallest part of it – what happens to it? Nothing if you stop here, everything if you become an ambassador!It's nothing complicated. Just simple math. You come home. Talk with three friends about what you have learned. Those three, talk to another group of friends, each. Small step by small step, the information goes forward. I won't lie to you, you won't be able to change the entire world. But you'll change your own.
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| Final day |