Volunteers Centre Skopje hosted Erasmus+ training course “Mental Health Matters” from the 4th to the 12th of April 2025, co-organized with Stowarzyszenie Europa Iuvenis.
There is a stereotype that Balkan people are more relaxed, live slower, and enjoy life more. Our daily life is usually a rush, we don’t have time to pause, find out why we are in this place right now, think about quality and how to improve our daily mental health. This time, we tried to take a moment. To reflect. To actually focus on well-being, balance work and life, develop our soft skills, and build meaningful connections.
We stayed next to Ohrid lake, one of the oldest and deepest lakes in Europe, with a rich history that has influenced the Balkans for centuries. Through the centuries the lake was a place where different religions, cultures and nations were living. As Kapka Kassabova writes in her book “To the Lake: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace” the lake is a mystical place, where people are deeply connected to the lake.
The training was held in Struga, where diverse cultures meet, but despite differences people coexist together. The same spirit of togetherness was present in our project, which brought together participants from Armenia, Poland, Macedonia, and Romania. We came to learn about ourselves and to exchange good practices in the field of mental health.
Despite many differences, people are similar. We could find common language and reflect together. We learned that “humans are not robots” and that “we contain multitudes”. Every project brings new experiences and learning, and this one was no different. Many of us recognized aspects of our daily lives reflected in what we discussed. As our trainer put it: “I am tired, but at the same time I want to meet with other people” and that duality is okay.
Over the week, everyone learned something different. A participant from Romania said that she learned “how we should embrace vulnerability rather than run away from it”. For a participant from Poland the session on how to manage burnout was especially useful. Meanwhile, a participant from Armenia pointed “to take your time, to take your rest and not to rush” as an important lesson. The diversity of our backgrounds led to a beautiful variety in what each of us took away from the experience.
It is hard to take every advice, or a good practice and put it into our routine at once. A lot of practical information but also reflections will benefit us during our lifetime. What matters most is continuing to strive for personal growth and recognizing the benefits over time, especially when it comes to avoiding issues like chronic stress or burnout.
Sometimes everything gets too much… One of the most important topics that we touched upon was burnout. This issue remains somewhat taboo, especially in youth work. Being an activist is often associated with tireless commitment, as if burnout was a sign of weakness. One sentence that stuck with us: “Trained monkey could do it”, struck a nerve, because it reflected how mechanical and dehumanized our efforts can sometimes become. We went deeply into the topic of how to diagnose and how to prevent burnout.
Spending time in the closeness of Ohrid lake was a true experience of reflection about ourselves, and through connecting with the place we also felt this connection with each other. Everyone will definitely take something valuable from this experience into the future. Time flew by quickly, and alongside the knowledge we gained, we also built meaningful connections. We could relate our own situations to those of others and feel a true sense of community. With the strong bonds we formed, we can now cooperate and support each other moving forward.
Jakub Pokuciński