Few weeks ago me, Dane and Aleksandra were selected to participate on Contact making seminar- Build your careers, held in the wonderful village of Skrdlovice in the country side of Czech Republic. Totally 3 participants from 10 different countries took part of the event including- Macedonia, Spain, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia and Czech Republic. The event aim was give us an opportunity to explore new ways of thinking, to get new knowledge and to share our experiences on topics related to employment and entrepreneurship between youth in Europe. At the same time, it was a great opportunity for establishing new partnerships among participating NGOs and CSOs, cooperations and friendships between participants. The event was organized under the Erasmus + Programme of the European Commission.
During the non – formal educational activities such as workshops, discussions, games, theater, role play, group work, presentations and so on, we were able to shared ideas, problems and solutions about the young people in our countries. As participants representing the Association of Volunteering “Volonterski Centar Skopje” from Macedonia, we were proud to hold a presentation about the Macedonian traditional food and drinks, social values and uniqueness of the country. We gave a chance to the other participants just for a moment to feel and to taste the Macedonian Ajvar, Beer and other snacks and sweets. Also, during the network building activities we engaged in contact with other NGOs/ CSOs representatives. Few new ideas for project proposals were under discussion after we got a very detailed presentation about the Erasmus + Programme opportunities.
Skrdlovice is a village located in a rural area that is part of the Moravia. The position of the village is somewhere between the capital- Prague and Brno, the second biggest city by population in Czech Republic. The village has no more than 700 people, which main occupation is glass melting and producing glass objects. One very interesting moment for us was that Constantine and Methodius, famous Macedonian teachers during their work in 9th century, visited this place. Namely, in 863 year they arrived in Moravia, where they have opened a lot of schools and churches, aiming to wider the usage of the Cyrillic alphabet.
Except the opportunity to learn and to evolve our skills and knowledge, we also enjoyed the great nature of the winter story in Skrdlovice. We were playing snow games, visited the frozen lake and used it for skiing. The bravest one even made a hole in the ice and got in the frizzing water while the temperature was less than zero. The nature surrounding was extremely peaceful, calm and relaxing. Simply, it was like a fairytale.
As part of the learning programme, there was planned a field education while visiting the city of Brno that was around 1 hour far from the event venue. We spend one day exploring the life in Brno which is consider as urban area. During our visit, the group by direct interaction with the citizens (mainly young people) got deeper understanding about their perception for the employment policies, the employment influence on the life, and generally the life of young people. The conclusion was that the city, and generally the whole country are facing really rapid development and the unemployment rate is very low, less than 5%.
This adventure was excellent moment for evolving our lives and in same time learning and developing our brains while using the opportunities of Erasmus + Programme.
Daniel Josifovski