Kids in Action 33, 26th October str. 55337, Thessaloniki, Greece www.kidsinaction.gr info@kidsinaction.gr tel &fax: 0030 2310 552655 Facebook Fan page Twitter Youtube Report made by: Olga Kyriakidou, olga@kidsinaction.gr | https://www.salto-youth.net/tools/toy/olga-kiriakidou.2451/ Athanasios (Sakis) Krezios, sakis@kidsinaction.gr | https://www.salto-youth.net/tools/toy/athanasios-sakis-krezios.681/
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Thessaloniki, January 2014
CONTENT
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10 YEARS– 10 ACTIONS 1.Ecology and Healthy Living 2.Bike Carnival 3.Balkan Fest 4.ParkaRe Mazi mas – Park with us! 5.Ftou & Vgaino 6.Please Do Disturb 7. World Naked Bike ride 8. Creativity XXL 9. Kids are Playing – Fighting against Cancer 10. Birthday Party EVS Hosting Sending Youth Initiatives Puppets are talking for Bullying Grundtvig Social Educircation Participation in Youth Exchanges and Training Courses
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10 YEARS– 10 ACTIONS This year “Kids in Action” celebrated 10 years of action! For this reason, we organized and implemented 10 major events. The programme of events was aiming to highlight youth culture and art, urban culture, the environment, sports, healthy living and human rights. The events were addressed to children and parents, to young people from all over Europe. It was in 2003 when some young artists from Thessaloniki decided to come together, aiming at free expression, alternative forms of art and voluntarism. It has already been 10 years since then, however, «Kids in Action» keeps acting enthusiastically through organizing festivals and European meetings, setting up alternative forms of demonstration in the streets, squares and parks and constantly promoting art, culture and voluntarism. Videos URL:
Final video Promotional video
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1. Ecology and Healthy Living Ecology and Healthy Living - the first of the ten actions for the 10 years - was a youth Exchange under the Youth In Action Programme and took place from the 4th to the 12th of March in the village of Seli , Mt. Vermio. There, for 10 days, 72 young people from 12 European countries (Poland, Latvia, Estonia, England, Portugal, Malta, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Greece) participated in 8 creative workshops: Ice Carving, Land Art, Photography, Upcycling, Music, Performance Theater, Aerial acrobatics and participated in sports activities such as skiing , hiking and climbing. Through the specific programme of activities, based on experiential and non-formal learning, the participants developed new competences related to ecology and healthy life, to cooperativeness, solidarity, teamwork and shared experiences on ecological life-styles. "This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission is not responsible for any use of the information contained therein. "
2. Bike Carnival The Bike Carnival is a great costume parade of cyclists in the city center, with the aim to promote cycling as a means of transportation in the city. This year, the 4th edition of the bike carnival parade took place with more than 300 cyclists in carnival outfit. After the parade that is around the city center of Thessaloniki a street party took place in one of its main squares. Thessaloniki is waiting every year for this event and despite the cold weather the participation was beyond our expectations.
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3. 2nd Balkan Fest Balkan Festival - in its second year - aimed to highlight the cultural similarities and differences between countries from the Balkans and to enhance respect for diversity. It is a festival with participation of artists, music, images, tastes and dance from all Balkan countries.
This year, the Balkan Fest gathered more than 1000 guests who for one day sensed the Balkan spirit, through video projections, images of filmmakers and photographers, tasted delicacies of Balkan cuisine and had fun with music and Balkan sounds. See the video and photos
Photos by Karolina Tsirogianni
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4. Park with us! – Παρκαρε Μαζί μας
The action “Park with us”, which for 2 years gave life to the city's parks, renewed the weekly appointment, encouraging residents to return and embrace the few green spaces in the city. The city-parks are vital areas, areas of communication and interaction and were transformed for the 4th year from friends who played, made picnics and shared food, ideas and dreams. People of all ages were supporting the action, relaxed and enjoyed nature – a habit that is not famous for the citizens of Thessaloniki - and they were breaking the routine of everyday life. The 4th Action for the 10 years “Kids in Action” filled our Sundays with herbs, games, food, laughs following the quote “the city parks are very few to remain silent”!
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5. Ftou & Vgaino – Kids and Parents festival
The artistic Festival for children and parents, after the first successful event in 2012, came back, providing the opportunity for them to communicate and participate in alternative activities related to arts, sports and healthy life. The aim of the festival - that has as title a Greek expression from the game “hide and seek”- is to bring together children with their parents, to play, to create, to enjoy through alternative ways of art and innovative workshops and performances. For 2 days, the guests had the opportunity to plant flowers and small trees, to skate and longboard, to try out gymnastics, to climb up to the walls, to play theater and to listen to fairytales. Moreover 40 children said goodbye to their parents and stayed over the night in “Block 33” the cultural space that the festival took place.
During the night, the children had the opportunity to watch the stars with telescopes, to eat a healthy dinner and to fall asleep with the music of the Classical Orchestra of Thessaloniki. The response of parents and children met theexpectations of “Kids in Action“and the number of children who participated were around 800 on both days. More photos you can see here
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6. Please Do Disturb – Street festival The Artistic Youth Festival "Please Do Disturb" is the most subversive, youthful, vibrant and creative, “annoying” open street celebration! It was organized for the sixth time, combining all forms of street art and claiming the free public spaces of the city. The 6th edition of the festival took place in “Xarhakos” park, a park that used to be secluded and left uncared through the previous years. After the festival in 2007 and 2008 in the same place, the municipality of Thessaloniki undertook the initiative to reform the park, so it was turned into a park for sports and entertainment, with skate ramps, high-ropes and other recreational facilities.
The 6th "Please Do Disturb" was organized with great success, with the participation of many artistic groups, photo exhibition, theater and dance performances, music bands, local NGOs, discussions, actions for children with the active involvement of young people from Thessaloniki.
See more photos here
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7. World Naked Bike Ride
The World Naked Bike Ride is a global activist action. It took place in our city for the sixth year. Its objectives are to promote cycling as a means of urban transportation, against car usage, against our dependence on oil, to promote ecology and the innocence of the naked body.
The World Naked Bike Ride has a peaceful and artistic character. Painted and trimmed bodies and bikes, natural decoration, accessories, colors and music used as vehicles of ecological messages. “Come as naked as you dare� is the quote of the Bike ride in which more than 1000 inhabitants of Thessaloniki and nearby cities took part. After the ride, a party took place in a central park of Thessaloniki in which cyclists or not, had the opportunity to participate in environmental discussions, in artistic workshops and enjoy music concerts.
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8. Creativity XXL
"Creativity" is an idea started by “Kids in Action” and is a creative, multicultural youth meeting held for the first time in Greece in 2004. During the meeting young people from different countries of Europe coexist, interact, and share experiences through a programme of activities that promote creativity, free spirit, solidarity, tolerance and mutual understanding. So far, 11 different projects have been held in Greece, Spain, U.K and Serbia, which involved more than 900 young people from 15 different countries in Europe.
On September 6 to 11, the 12th anniversary meeting entitled "Creativity XXL" took place in Tsaf Tsouf Summer Camp, in Orfani Kavalas, Greece. The programme was open to participants of previous events and to everyone who wanted to live for 5 days in the world of "Creativity", a world where creativity is the driving force. The youth meeting «Creativity XXL» offered the opportunity to 60 young people of different countries and different cultural environments to coexist for 5 days , enhancing their communication, developing values related to equality, solidarity and respect, while they were given the opportunity to participate in artistic and sports activities that foster creativity, participation and teamwork.
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9. Playing against Cancer The ninth action for 10 years "Kids in Action" was held under the framework of the European Movement against Cancer “Move against Cancer” and was titled "Children Playing". On the 13th of October “Kids in Action” members gathered at the “White Tower” and invited children to learn about healthy food and cancer by playing. Through a relay race children had the opportunity to learn about which vegetables and fruits can prevent cancer.
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10. Birthday Party “Kids in Action" celebrated their birthday and invited all our friends from around Europe, NGOs and organizations who supported us all these years and all the young people of the city in the most creative, vibrant, youthful party! On the 30th of November we put on our nice clothes, we set up “Block 33”, we prepared the birthday cake, we turned the music on and we said “Happy Birthday” to us! We celebrated 10 years of free expression, creativity, art, subversive actions. We celebrated 10 years of friendship, smiles and laughs, nice moments!
Friends from around Europe were sending us wishes photos and videos and some of them travelled from their countries to celebrate with us.
We saw videos of our actions from all these years and we laughed by realizing how we were 10 years ago! We danced and we blew out the candles by making all a big wish, to continue acting, making initiatives for urban landscape and Europe, to continue giving smiles to kids, to continue dreaming! For ten and more years!
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EVS Hosting
In August “Kids in Action” welcomed Alberto Garcia Marin, our EVS volunteer! Alberto comes from Villanova I la Gentru, a city close to Barcelona, Spain and there he is practicing cooking from time to time. It was his idea to realize a project through which he can promote healthy living and food. His project started on August 2013 finishes on January 2014 and has the title “A chance for change”. During those 5 months Alberto realized food workshops through which healthy food was promoted. Children had the opportunity to create healthy recipes for the lunch basket for school, they learn that sweets are not always bad and they enjoyed their time through learning. Moreover Alberto participated in other activities that Kids in Action realized. He was responsible for the initiative (and action number 9 for the 10 years “Kids In Action”) “Move against Cancer”, he was member of the “animation team” –responsible for all entertaining and sport activities- in Creativity XXL, he participated to the preparations of the birthday party and he was a valuable and talented puppet maker for the Youth Initiative “Puppets are talking for bullying”.
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Sending Through our 10 years of existence “Kids in Action” supported many volunteers who decided to live the “ EVS Experience”. So we did in 2013… we managed to prepare, send and keep communication with all of our volunteers who finished their EVS in 2013 or keep on living the experience in various countries, such as Spain, Ireland, Latvia, Portugal. 5 young people finished in June 2013 their Group EVS in “European Youth Capital 2012”, Braga, Portugal, where they had the opportunity to get to know “from the inside” the organization, the administration of the European Youth Capital institution, while Thessaloniki already had won the title for the year 2014. Volunteers are now back and are fully participating in the organization and the preparation of events and initiatives for Thessaloniki European Youth Capital 2014, while at the same time they are mentors and tutors to other volunteers. Natasha Michael spend 9 months in Elche, Spain where she was organizing cinema and photography workshops for the young people in Elche while she was learning about graphics and websites and being a radio producer for the municipality youth radio station.
Melanie Meisch is in Dublin since June 2013 and she will stay there until June 2014. She is a volunteer in Depaul Ireland an NGO that has the motto "everybody should have a place called home" and for this purpose Melanie is helping out. She is organizing activities for the 61 homeless people that they found a place in the NGO.
Anna is in Gulbene, Latvia and she is finishing her EVS in March 2014, until then she will complete 9 months away from Greece. She is a volunteer for the Youth Center Baze and she is organizing weekly artistic workshops for children, participated in the summer camp that the youth center organized and she is trying to learn kids from Latvia to speak Greek! Christina is in Vic, Spain in Fundacio Humanitaria Dr. Trueta Organization with Coordinating organization Aurora. In 2 months that she is there, she is working at the “Atelier” a magnificent place – according to her words - where old things are magically becoming new. And she is the magician! Through the guiding of her mentor she is upcycling and making available for reuse toys, clothes, shoes, home furniture etc. 15
Youth Initiative - Puppets are talking about Bullying “Kids in Action" using the experience gained in 10 years of life through loads of entertaining performances, the reflection of its members and with the increasing incidence of school and internet bullying in young ages, wrote and presented a performance with puppets for diversity, marginalization and friendship. “Lola” a beautiful but yet greed and not so good with others jellyfish and “Elli” a lonely, quiet but brave eel, discovering together the power of friendship and they understand the diversity trying to respect it and to handle others with tolerance. 9 new artists and young educators cooperated with groups and organizations based in Thessaloniki, orphanages and institutions, with teachers and students and created from scratch a puppet theater performance. They created puppets, they worked on the script of the play; they worked on the scenery, wrote music and worked all together for 8 months for the realization of the actual play. Soon at our webpage you will find photos, videos and experiences of the participants of this initiative. "This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission is not responsible for any use of the information contained therein.
Grundtvig – Social Edurcication
“Educircation” is an international project for teachers of circus techniques. The aim of this project is to improve the quality of Circus Teaching around Europe. During this project – that is still on - Kids in Action with 6 more partners from Czech republic, Hungary, Germany, U.K., Spain and Belgium hold different activities between professional circus people (teachers, artists, schools, directors, administration, management, etc) to get a clearer idea of the Circus situation in Europe and to improve the methods of teaching. The project is finishing in June 2014 and in March 2014 a meeting event in the city of Thessaloniki will be held by Kids in Action for all partner organizations. You can see photos and read all the latest on Edurcication Project website http://www.educircation.eu/ "This project has been funded with support from the European Commission, Education and Culture Life Long Learning – Grundtvig
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Participation in Youth Exchanges and Training Courses More than 20 young people, 2 youth exchanges, 4 Training Courses. Although this year “Kids in Action” members were pretty much “devoted” to the realization of the 10 years events celebration and a lot of work was hiding behind this achievement, we couldn’t abandon our partners and for sure we couldn’t stay away of giving the opportunity to more young people to participate to Youth projects around Europe, so we managed to prepare and to send 20 young people in 6 different projects with various topics (Personal Development, Outdoor Activities, Youth Projects Management, Employability etc) realized by our partners in various countries such as: U.K., Hungary, Serbia, Italy, Latvia.
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