Volunteerism vs. Voluntourism magazine

https://www.facebook.com/Volun_teerism-vs-Volun_tourism-YE-Busteni-2019

“VOLUNTEERISM VS VOLUNTOURISM“ was a youth exchange with 34 youngsters and 8 group leaders from 8 associations from 8 countries : Czehia,Greece,Italy,Letonia,Lithuania,Macedonia,Poland si Romania that took place between 16 and 25 october 2019 in Busteni,Romania The projects took place in a context when together with increasing the number of projects in Erasmus + also the insucces rate is growing and a high number of complains appear concerning attendance of some participants,unotivated volunteers with different expectations and priorities Aim of the project was to increase the success and quality of youth projects by identifying and applying new solutions to stimulate volunteerism and active participation in all the phases of a project.

Activities were for preparation,introduction and getting to know eachother,trust and team building,presentation of participants and organizations,introduction of Erasmus + programme and youthpass certificate,cultural visits in Busteni and Prahova Valley region,intercultural evenings and evenings thematic or at youngsters disposal.There were 6 thematic workshops for presentations of reasearches and introduction of terminology,then an intermediary workshop to explain the method and a debate tournament with 8 teams that played in 6 rounds. The final was held in front of highschool students from Busteni and we are thankful to Mr. Deputy Constantin Petrea to facilitate the location.

The methodology was based on nonformal education and consisted in games,presentations, debates,role plays and simulations,workshops,visits,”world school debate“ competition.

As the project was considered by participants and partners a great result so we thank a lot to our partners: EUROPEAN YOUTH CENTRE BRECLAV- Czechia, Baltijas Regionalais fonds – Latvia, Youth Human Impact – Poland, ASSOCVCS Skopje – North Macedonia, ASSOCIAZIONE EUROPALMENTE – Italy, "Tavo Europa" – Lithuania, Greek Youth Mobility – Greece.

Our gratitude goes also to Andreea Budu and all staff at Vila Cristina for hosting us friendly and supported all our activities.

Fabiola and Bogdan Chiriacescu on behalf of ODEN Nehoiu

VOLUNTEERISM IN OUR COUNTRIES •If you have to possibility to help, but you don’t..... you are one half way there •cleaning spots •planting trees •animals(WWF) •old people •children •people with disabilities •local actions •church •schools •red cross •NGO

•The bigger city, the better chances •A pizza to be hole, needs all of it’s slices •Volunteering is a piece of cake •Want to go to university for volunteer?

•A lot of work-less pay •I help myself by helping others •21,8 below poverty •Too poor to be a volunteer

VOLUNTEER CITY

- GO ECO. In addition to volunteering and other excellent internship opportunites like • The skill developement • Environmental impact internship • Healthcare - MALTIECAI since 1991 • To gain new valuable skills and personal qualities • Engages other young people to spend the time helping others - THE GREATEST ORCHESTRA CHRISTMAS PARTY CHARITY since 1993. They support and improve medical care offered to the polish patiens.

- RAINBOW MOVEMENT • 6,4 bilions CCR- value of volunteering work • 7,2 hours volunteering per capital • 920 000 numbers of volunteers - THE SMILE OF A CHILD. • Against violence trafficking • For every child with health issues, state of poverty or victim of extinction • Prevention treatment - EUROGALANTE. • To have self-esteem and self-efficacy • Communicate with different people • Improve your skills and gain new ones • Give your contribution -Baltias Regionas Lais Fonols since 2011 • Very well informed 15% • Well informed 23% • Don't know about it 60%

•people have lack of info •active 15-22 years •unicef mk, aiesec Skopje, VCS, red cross..

•environmental, medical, political rolls •Poverty

•Many international cooperating

•Biggest volunteering organization-

Caritas

•Founded by people and volunteers •Neutral situation

•Association

-Civil non-profit company

-foundation

-collection

•environment

•solidarity

•events •The local economy is supported

•Many jobs are not paid properly

•intercultural volunteers •Europian solidarity corps

•NGOs

•local volunteers

•international volunteers •Volunteer situation is good

•15-24 most active

•the biggest organization in Poland is

WOŚP

•every year they collect for different

purpose

•over 25 centers of volunteering •Erasmus + •the national week of volunteering

EXPERIENCE IN VOLUNTEER PROJECTS There is almost half of participants on this project who didn’t have any previous experiences with youth exchange projects. Many people (especially the younger ones) are on youth exchange projects under Erasmus+ for the first time. Then we can find few participants who have been already on few projects before. Usually they have attended youth exchanges, training courses and European voluntary service (EVS).

We should understand firstly how we define term volunteer. We work just with narrow definition of volunteer which is participant of Erasmus+ projects (especially youth exchanges). It is necessary to mention also wider definition of volunteer. According to Cambridge dictionary volunteer is a person who does something, especially helping other people, willingly and without being forced or paid to do it. If we speak about such a volunteering work,we can find probably more experiences among participants. Such a work can include some school projects, community projects, volunteering or internship in some institutions (for example non-governmental organisation or government). As well as blood donation, manual work at some festivals or other cultural events, so promoting something.

Let’s talk about concrete experiences.

Emilia from Macedonia has been participating in school project, where the topic was scientific and consisted of few workshops. She has learned digital and marketing skills.

Sotiris from Greece spoke about his experience from youth exchange project, where countries with mutual problems or tension between them were participating (for example Turkey and Armenia).

Participants could during this project create their own activities and “breaking walls and building bridges” throughout different cultures. So, he realised that more power could come from participants than facilitators.

Gerda from Lithuania participated in international project about ecology and healthy lifestyle.

Elina from Latvia has experience from project Youth in Action. They organized festival for good deeds and spread this idea during the festival. She pointed out that this signal action required lots of work and its result was just one festival. So, she considers this project as unsustainable.

There is also once a year a national clean-up in Latvia. It is called “Latvia will be green�. We can find this initiative also in other countries (for example Czech Republic, Romania or Lithuania).

There is example from Poland about festival organized by local youngsters. First it was initiative of few people, now this festival happens every year.

Frederico from Italy shared project from Catania in Sicily, this project tried to prevent using drugs among children by offering them some social activities to spend their time alternatively/effectively.

In Greece they tried to stimulate volunteers by organizing school competition in recycling.

Romanian participants went for the international project which topic was about climate change and migration.

Jitka from Czech Republic participated in few projects under Erasmus+, from which the most beneficial was basic synergy project in Croatia, where she worked on developing her soft skills.

WORLD COFFEE – ROLE OF VOLUNTEERS IN EVERY PHASE OF THE PROJECT

Four flipcharts, four moderators, four different titles connected to the main topic of the youth exchange Volunteerism vs voluntourism (October 16th-25th, Busteni, Romania). The workshop world cafè, implemented on Friday 19th October, gathered the project’s participants in four international groups, who were invited to reflect on the proposed topic of each flipchart with the help of the moderators.

Roles of volunteers in preliminary and preparatory phases For this activity we separated a list in 4 section. In every section there were different people that were writing key words about the topic and in the end they were using their creativity and imagination to decorate their section. The common key words that were written in every section were: 1. Understand the topic of the project 2. Do a research for the project 3. Communication between the group and the NGO 4. Cooperation between the group and the NGO 5. Carefully reading the info pack 6. Application time 7. Time management 8. Flexibility when certain things are changed etc. – Emilija – North Macedonia My table discussed about how volunteers should behave during the duration of the project. The conversations were, overal, pretty interesting across all 4 groups. And while other groups were more engaged than others, they all contributed in creating the beside profile for a good volunteer during the mobility's duration. I would like to note one instance, when a participant created a drawing instead of just writing his idea, without any instruction about this by me. This instance gave me the idea that a basic quality of a volunteer should be creativity. But, as the activity progressed none of the groups mentioned this value as basic for a volunteer. When this topic about creativity was discussed by my last group, the participants came to the conclusion that it's a good value for the volunteer but it's an extra because it's based on character and not behavior. On other matters all the groups agreed for the most part. As they concluded that the main values of a volunteer should be: respect, punctuality, team spirit, ideas sharing, being well-informed and work ethic. So, by the groups' conclusions I believe that the responsibilities of a good volunteer are based on two words: respect and understanding towards the rest of the participants, the facilitators, the project's intend and themselves as volunteers.- Sotiris – Greece

The present article wants to report the results emerged from the flipchart dedicated to the tasks and duties of the volunteer after the end of the project.

During this session the youngsters had the possibility to share real and effective points of view about the many possibilities of dissemination of the results. “What is our duty as a volunteer when we will be back home?”, “How are we going to give evidence to the results of this exchange?” are some of the questions that helped them to figure out the best ways to contribute to the dissemination and visibility of this project.

All the four groups agreed on the use of social medias as one of the best ways to give evidence to the project: photos and videos are visual elements that catch our followers’ and friends’ attention; also generating common hashtags is a solution that highlights the project and makes it unique.

The youth exchange Volunteerism vs volontourism saw the participation of 40 youngsters coming from 8 different European countries: this lets us think that the Erasmus+ project is well known inside and outside the whole Europe, but actually it’s not like that. There are still many people (especially youngsters) who don’t know the different possibilities offered by the Erasmus+ project. According to this issue almost all of the discussion groups agreed on the fact that organizing meeting in schools and universities, maybe with the help of the sending organization is an effective way to spread information about this huge Erasmus+ world.

Moreover meeting friends, relatives and acquaintances for a cup of coffee remains always the best way for telling our experience and its details.

Another very effective mean of dissemination is writing short articles that can be posted either on our own social medias or, if we want to reach a bigger audience, even on the website of our sending organization or on other blogs.

A couple of participants mentioned beside the dissemination also the exploitation of the project’s results, touching a very good point of discussion, since our aim is the one to give more and more evidence to the Erasmus+ project. For this kind of contribution the participants mentioned the cooperation with the already known partner organizations, trying to reach and involve new potential partners. This could be the starting point to generate new ideas and to write and implement new projects.During world cafè participants were asked to be concrete in sharing their ideas, contributing with what they will really do after the conclusion of the project: that’s why we are positive and we strongly believe that the youth exchange Volunteerism vs voluntourism will reach the highest number of people, getting in this way a great visibility, the same that Erasmus+ deserves. Francesca – Latvia

Solutions to increase motivation and active participation of volunteers in projects First of all I want to say that every group I had as a moderator was extremely dedicated to dig deep into the topic and really try and find solutions to the problem we are facing. There was a lot of discussion and a little bit of debates and a tremendous amount of teamwork. I was really satisfied with the ideas and solutions that the participants came up with. One of the most common ideas, to be more precise every group mentioned it was that we should have more interactive games, with more actions that include all participants and that we should give the participants more space to create their own games and activities. Another thing that was very common was that there should be a good level of communication between the organizers and the participants which will lead to a better understanding and better results. Another idea that was very interesting was that two groups came up with the idea that a good way to motivate the participants is to cherish and publicly appreciate their work which is gonna lead to more confidence and more actions. Also another thing was that if we make the projects a little more competitive, healthy and friendly competition we mean, participants are gonna be willing to work and be active even more. A good way to increase the activity and motivation of the participants from our point of view is that if we create a good and friendly atmosphere in which everyone is gonna feel safe and comfortable, this will lead to way more action and motivation. For last I want to say that these kind of workshops also really help for increasing the motivation and activity of participants considering thay every minute of this workshop was really productive and each and every one of the participants was included in the whole process. I am extremely satisfied with the results and I am very proud of what we have achieved.- Ilija – North Macedonia

REAL VOLUNTEER vs FALSE VOLUNTEER

It was a sunny and boring afternoon in Busteni and everybody was about to sleep. At that point, the facilitators announced us that the next workshop will contain some little sketch and suddenly everybody woke up, got motivated and immediately started to work with passion. After a short preparation of around two hours the 7 teams that we had been split to, were ready to act and present to the whole group their masterpieces concerning the exact difference between a volunteer and a voluntourist, which is mostly a tourist as everybody can understand. It was really amazing to see that all the teams covered all the different aspects of the topic.

Very interesting characters were created on paper to show responsible and opposite attitude and then every of this was put in a specific situation to act. We had Bob, Iulia, Milana, Spongebob, Violetta, Good Joe, Chloe and a very green Italien.

When it was to play some of the teams were so creative that they included also the audience to their play in order to enrich the learning process and help every participant to avail themselves of that activity at the most grade. It could be very interesting to write all the plays here, but it could take a lot of time and maybe a whole book. The highlight of the activity was that everybody was included and was able to understand the major difference between the two terms in a very interactive way and also I feel obliged to say, from my own point of view that this activity was an important step for the bonding of the group, since the participants stepped out of their comfort zone and did their best in order to amaze the other people.

VOLUNTEER or VOLUNTOURIST – yes/no debate

This workshop was about expressing yourself about different subjects. We had two sides: strongly agree and strongly disagree. Both sides had a lighter side like agree, partially agree, disagree and partially disagree. Everyone had a different opinion and we needed to say why we had that opinion. The subjects were “Volunteering is losing time” “Volunteers should be paid for their work” “Voluntourists should be put on a blacklist for european commission” and finally “Volunteers need previous training”. After each subject everyone went to a side and explained why the felt like going to that side and starting a small debate with the others on the other side. In the end everybody was happy that they had the opportunity to express theirselves.

RISKS IN YOUTH EXCHANGES – HOW TO COMBAT VOLUNTOURISM Participants had a workshop about risk cases where they acted out the most common voluntourism situations. They had a task to create solutions for each situation.

A group of youngsters are playing drinking games in a youth exchange. MARCO (17 years), JOSE (21 years) and KAROLINA (24 years) decided in secret to cheat to make DANIEL (19 years) drunk. They managed, but on the way to his room helped by his group leader CRISTINA (26 years), DANIEL felt on the stairs and broke his leg. The others were laughing.

Solution to it was to not push anyone when drinking, have boundaries and help out others when facing the dangerous situation for health.

RAMONA (19 years) is a young Romanian gypsy in an exchange. Even if she is motivated the others don't interact with her and even there are two guys, KARL (21 years) and MARTIN (22 years) that are bullying her. One evening, she complained to her group leader, RAUL (24 years) and to the organizer IVONA (38 years). They promised the situation will be clarified, but they didn't take any clear measure. Bullying continues next day in the bus and in the visit at a castle. After the visit RAMONA didn't show up to the meeting point. Her group leader received a short message from her.

The solution to it was to take care of the situation right away when participant is reaching for help. Also the organizers talked to the one who bullied the kid and clarified the issue.

One group of youngsters have a party in a room during a youth exchange drinking alcohol and also smoking joints.

BRUNO (25 years) and ELIZA (21 years) feel attracted to each other and spend some time together having a short romance during the night. Next day, BRUNO confess to his roommate ALEX (24 years) that he has pain in genital region. ALEX insults and slaps ELIZA in front of the group during lunch time. Nobody takes any action. ELIZA runs crying in her room, packs her luggage and disappears .

The solution to this was that right when the issue appears, you have to reach out to the team leaders or the organizer so that they would help out. Violence and aggression are not accepted in these kind of projects.

MARTA (23 years) is a participant in a youth exchange. She is late in every activity and shows no interest to the workshops. One day she skips a very important session, so the main organizer, ENRICO (32 years) complains to her group leader, OLGA (46 years) who actually is MARTA's mother. OLGA tries to protect her daughter, but the next day MARTA decided to leave the project to spend last 2 days with some local friends.

The solution to it was to show that there are advantages to the projects. As well as figuring out the reason why she is acting that way.

BEATRICE (35 years) and ANGELA (33 years) are coordinators of a youth exchange in Malaga, Spain with 5 countries. They proposed to group leaders instead of activities to have last 2 days of free time on the beach and to have lunch and dinner on their own. LINDA (27 years) refuses as in her group there are poor youngsters. She is supported by ANNA (41 years), a teacher, who says that her group is there for learning. The others leaders accepted organizator’s proposal and left the meeting together with them. ANNA and LINDA can’t decide what to do.

Solution was to came up with the group’s agreement: instead of partying for the last two days in the beach, they decided to choose to finish their tasks there.

MARIA (21 years) from Greece is a participant in a sport youth exchange in Italy. She doesn't like physical exercises but wants to enjoy the outdoor activities. Due to unproper shoes and lack of concentration during the energizer MARIA has a terrible accident and needs to go to the hospital. Organizer, STEFANO (40 years) and MARIA's group leader DESPINA (39 years) are arguing who is responsible for the accident. As STEFANO said is occupied with continuing the sport session with the others, DESPINA call a taxi to go to the hospital.

There were few solutions to the situation. One of them was to offer the opportunity to a friend. And the other solution was to take the preparation stage more seriously.

EGERT (25 years) is an isolated boy in the community without job or hobbies, so one association decided to send him to a youth exchange to help him without knowing that he is a drug addict. He met there two girls INNA (22 years) and VICTORIA (24 years) that don’t want to get involved too much in activities so they left together to have some drugs. Roommate of EGERT, JOSZEF (24 years) discovered them in a toilet and advice EGERT to stop otherwise will be reported. EGERT hit JOSZEF in the face and ran. INNA and VICTORIA are confused while after one minute BOBBY (29 years) entered the toilet. JOSZEF is on the floor and has no courage to say anything and the girls exit the toilet crying. EGERT didn’t show up for next activities.

The solution to it was that talking to Bobby would most likely convince him to stop doing drugs and start healthy life routine.

This workshop showed us very clear the risks of a “voluntourist” behaviour in youth exchanges.

We recognized that we faced most of the situations in previous projects and also most people recognized that they preferred to take no action. Now we can say we are more confident in be active and aware participants of what a youth exchange means. Besides that we developed artistic competences and some of participants showed good acting and improvisation skills.

FISH MARKET Fish market was a very interesting activity, in which international mixed teams worked together on the creation of a project .

The participants were split in teams and worked together in order to make the main structure of a potential future Erasmus+ volunteering project that we wish to implement some day in the future.

The questions that the youngsters were asked to take into consideration were: what, where, when, why, and which methods the project will be implement ed through. After that, we took our posters and we hang up in the rope so that every participant could go and vote for their favourite idea.

The project that collected the most of the votes: was “Tomas” which was a project for the protection of the endangered spiece, the Sea turtle, but the moderators told us that there isn`t a winner because they are all valid projects.

Also the others projects were very interesting.

The second project that received a lot of votes was:

“Seahorse”, the topic was about “what is europe for you”.

The others project were: -“Be protected”- about mental health.

-“Fishiana” - about pollution in the sea.

-“Don’t bully about, treat us equally”.

-“Real life through digital eyes” it’s about the role of the social media in the life of the young people.

This workshop was very stimulant, because we have the opportunity to invented and create a project and also confronted our ideas with that of the others team.

Work in team it’s very important because we learn to confronted different point of views and we learn to use the differents idea to create a common project.

It’s also Important this work because we have the possibility to move from the volunteer’s role to that of the one who creates the projects.

We learn that created a project is not easy how someone can think because you have to think at a lot of thinks like budget, place, participans, countries to involve the differents ideeas, the differents venues

OUR DEBATES “Voluntourists should be put on a black list by European Commission�

An interesting and very important part of the youth exchange were the debate matches. The participants had to debate about two themes, called motions. The first one was about voluntourists, more precisely "Voluntourists should be put on a blacklist

by European Commission" and the second one about volunteers payment, "Volunteers should be paid for their work". On the first motion, the main argument brought by the Government side was about the bad influence of voluntourists and why they are not doing great things in a Y.E.. The teams explained that because people are just partying, it creates problems, influences the other volunteers negatively and also takes the chance of another one who would have come to learn something new, intelligent. They also said that the blacklist is a method that teaches a lesson to the person that has been a voluntourist instead of being a volunteer, which was interpreted more like a punishment by the opposition.

The Opposition insist on the fact that the blacklist is an unjust punishment because E.C. act without understanding the whole voluntourist`s situation and it would be good to try to find out the reasons behind this bad behavior first. Some Opposition teams try to prove that there are special situations in which you should not accuse this bad participants, because maybe they have personal problems or they just didn't know how such a project works and it can be hard for them to find out in time. The Opposition also said that a person can come as a voluntourist, but during the exchange, he could change his perception about the things that happened there and become interested and active, but not necessarily visible. He will know that in the next exchange he will be involved from the beginning, so if the voluntourist was put on a blacklist right after his first Y.E, he would no longer have the opportunity to go on another one, never having the chance to become a good volunteer and, at the same, he will have a negative image after everything will come out.

“Volunteers should be paid for their work�

The second motion was more difficult because both teams had problems defining the type of payment. They didn't know exactly which way to talk about it, about a personal payment like skills, knowledge, happiness, or about a material way, with money, for example. When the Government talked about material payment they started by saying that volunteers are spending their own money and energy, so they try to find a solution for that. A significant part of the Government teams proposed to introduce vouchers that will help volunteers with travel costs, with their budget. The main idea was to make sure that everyone who wants to help will have this chance and no obstacle will get in their way.

The rest of the teams talked about personal payments and they referred to personal development, speaking a lot about the importance of the experience you gain.

That was not a fair approach because it made the Opposition work harder and left them without much to say. With all of that, there were some teams that opposed this motion and nevertheless won the debate. Teams that proposed the motion try, in general, to demonstrate that a person can help others just after he solves his personal problems, maybe with his family, money, time and the list goes on. Their solution for that was to create this material or moral payment to encourage ordinary people with normal problems to get involved in volunteering. Teams that were against the motion based their arguments on the idea that this payment is not a right decision and they highlighted on the contradiction between how we define volunteering and the idea of payment.

For the matches we worked in teams of four, but in every match only three had the chance to give a speech. We played respecting the World Schools format which means that the match had total six constructive speeches, three for the team proposition and three for the opposite one. Each team had the chance to change the course of the match with the reply speeches, which last less and summarize the main ideas of the motions. Each participant collaborated with the team and proved himself interested in the given topics. Only two participants had debated before, for the rest of them being the first such experience.

Actually, it was amazing to have the chance to debate. Those matches help us to develop our confidence and ability to speak in front of others. Most important, help us to build connections and made us work in teams. The emotions caused by the speeches, the conversations before matches and after all only the idea that we are in the same team were good ways to make us friends, to start trusting each others and to improve our communication skills.

Short stories in the end...

Every fairy tale has a happy end exactly like this extraordinary youth exchange. Personally I have too many feelings about this place and one day in the future I think I will return to Busteni and then all the emotions that I had here will emerge again from the abyss of my subconscious and they will remind me that I returned back home. Because I felt this place like my home. I have too many different crazy and funny stories to tell such as discussing about wolves and mushrooms trade or running like it’s the last day in the world while being chased by a bear and stuff like that. But if I have to choose my favorite one, I should mention all the moments that people were coming to me to ask me about their mistakes during debates because I was kind of strict judge and as a result I was giving them advice like their own mentor but without any professional experience on debating. (Georgios) So, it was the second day of the debate competition and me and my team were ready for the final match of the groups. We had prepared the night before, we had high spirits and we had studied the subject! But when we arrived they told us that today's match was about a different subject than the one we had prepared! The moment of realisation that we spent hours preparing for the wrong subject was just precious! My heart skipped about four heartbeats... so we started creating arguments on the spot and begging the judges for a bit more time to prepare! So, after all this we presented a rushed, halfbaked (and MAYBE a bit too emotional) arguments and we were prepared to lose... but the funny part is...we somehow won! By the way credits to the opposing team, they were great(Sotiris) One of my favorite memories is about coincidences, flights and of course the best aspect of this exchange: people. Flying to Romania from Warsaw I didn't know that on my same plane there were some participants of the polish team; I would have discovered it just few hours later while sipping a beer with them.

During our time in Romania I established a really good connection with these dudes and, as one of the youth exchanges' rules wants, we promised to visit each other ASAP. Well, I guess that was the promise I've kept the best so far: on my way back home I flew to Warsaw, this time knowing that on the same flight there were my new friends, and I found myself wandering for a while in the wonderful Warsaw, going to grab some pierogi next. And I also have the typical tourist pics with with Daniel and Monika (Francesca)

I have a precious story and a funny one. Let’s start with the precious one, so it was second night at the mountain of Busteni and i was telling my friends from the greek team how much of a potato i feel all the time and then they told us that they want a volunteer to be the potato of the theatre show that night and all the greek team just pushed me to the centre and so I played the role of a potato (I think I deserve an Oscar for that one). And the funny one is with Alexia,we needed to put the yogurt and the cucumber to fridge but it didn't worked and then Sotiris came to our room we told him about the broken fridge he saw it and then said "have you considered to plug it in ?" while holding the plug,then we just burst out laughing. It was the time that i felt the dumpest person in the world.(Morena) I would like to tell a story about my friend Sotiris So, we were at the final debate at the highschool and Bogdan was about to announce the results of the game and said: Sotiris is missing, let's wait for him. And a whole school, 40 participants and the facilitators were waiting the stressed Sotiris to finish his cigarette! Because when we are stressed in Greece we take things slowly and have a cigarette to feel better!

(Elefterios) I would like to tell my own story in terms of the secret friend game. So, the day we started to send our friends presents or anonymous letters and were spending time in order to find out their likes and dislikes, I was wondering about which person had chosen me. As the days were passing, I received nice presents such as a bar of chocolate, a letter giving clue to discover my secret friend's identity, a massage, a compliment letter etc. Anyway, it had a lot of fun to keep our secret friend's identity secret until the very last day by using pseudonyms and asking someone else to deliver our presents. Finally, on the last day of the project, everyone's secret friend went to each other to give them their youthpass.

Meanwhile, I saw Morena to come to my side. She gave it to me without saying anything. I was shocked and I started crying and laughing simultaneously. The funny fact was that every time I was receiving something from my secret friend I was telling her that and she was answering ''oh really'', ''can you guess your secret friend'', ''I am sure that it's a boy''. I am thankful to the people I met in Busteni.(Alexia)

‘This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.’