Probably a milestone in Erasmus + programme, a training course with participants from 27 countries representing their cultures and working on minorities issues. Youth workers learning new methods how to combat minority discrimination and learning about the situations and realities in different countries. Interactive work and sharing of good practices is the core of non-formal education and it was shown here in the best way possible.

For a great work you need a good team. In cases like this building a team is of a crucial importance and here the organizers did an excellent job and created one of the most cohesive teams and a great working environment that I have experienced in project. Starting with getting to know each other to trust games where you had to let go and put your trust in people that you have just met a day or two before. That enabled to really tackle the issues that were the topic of this training course and that was ethnic minorities through the methods of forum theater and video creation. It turned out that both of the methods were quite successful. The forum theater, where the audience gets to react, be an actor and change the screen play and the whole flow of the play that was put in front of some of the local youth. Situations from a real life situation in a refugee camp to everyday situation in some of the neighborhoods around Europe gets you thinking and trying to find a way how we can make this world a better place. Also the video creation where the end product had three short videos with some powerful messages that are supposed to be transmitted and make people have a different look and a maybe change their perspective on the world. The effort put into making this videos along with the teamwork on the whole production was something impressive, something that should be experienced. It enabled the participants to learn new techniques and tools on how to spread the word on the fact that we all share this world.

It was amazing to see the growth and the development on the participants, both in the group and individually. People to come out of their cocoons and to spread their wings, to embrace new things and see the things that they learn in their eyes was a pure pleasure to see. Not many projects end with participants having tears in their eyes from happiness, this was one of them with promises on reuniting soon and trying to replicate the time spent together.

Andrej Naumovski