1,2,3,action final

1,2,3 ACTION Youth Exchange

Sărata-Monteoru - Buzău 30 May - 09 June

2017

LATVIA ESTONIA

POLAND

CROATIA

LITHUANIA

CYPRUS ITALY

ROMANIA

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Content: Page Page Page Page Page Page Page Page Page Page Page

1: Participant countries map 3: discription 5-7: Day 1 program 8-13: Day 2 program 14-18: Day 3 program 19-22: Day 4 program 23: Day 5 program 24: Trip 25-26: Small talks 27-28: Extracurricular activities 30: Group photo

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Discription: “1,2,3, ACTION - keywords, images and actions to promote active and healthy lifestyle“ is a youth exchange program funded by Erasmus + that took place in Sărata-Monteoru, Buzău Romania, 30 May-9 June 2017. The learning methods used in the program were based on non-formal education such as team-building activities, trust games, debates, theatrical performance and energizers. The days started with energizers and ended with evaluation meetings. 42 youngsters and 8 group leaders from 8 countries participated.

The participating countries were Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Italy and Romania.

The project dealt with the decrease of life quality of youngsters because of drugs, alcohol, inactivity and irresponsible lifestyle. The above mentioned factors negatively influence the involvement of youngsters in society and lead to unemployment among young people.

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Day1 The first day was composed of energizers, name games and getting to know each other and also other activities. Some coexisting guidelines were established to ensure our pleasant and productive collaboration. We shared our fears and hopes about the program, as well as stereotypes from our home countries, using theatre as a tool.

We had a presentation from the organizers about Erasmus +, the Youthpass certificate and the key competences of a Youthpass.

Get addicted to a healthy lifestyle! - Ignazio Athena - Follow your dreams I know that I know nothing - Emilija

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Hugs no drugs - Beata

ENERGIZERS: by Jack “The role of energizers in every youth exchange is that the tension span of people is short, so if they sit on a chair for too long, they cannot focus on the activities.

Energizer raises the mood and makes people more focused, otherwise they get deep into their own thoughts. Energizers are even more important in the morning, because they make participants move and their blood to circulate. I would suggest everyone to remember the energizers we had to use them later.�

You always have a fun for a beer. Terviseks! - Harli

It's not about bad or good, disliking and liking something and judging something. As long as one unique can be live it's life and satisfy it's values not hurting others - it's precious! - Nadina

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INTERCULTURAL NIGHT The day ended with an intercultural night organized by Cyprus, Estonia, Romania and Latvia and included traditional food, drinks, costumes, songs and dances. In order to make the country presentations more interesting, each country was presented from people from another country using videos, quizzes and theatrical performances. (e.g. Latvia was presented by the Cypriot participants).

Don't you dare shrink yourself for someone else's comfort - do not become small for people who refuse to grow - Iva

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Workshop: LAND ART

Day 2

c o i n e d b y Robert Smithson or Earth art is an art movement in which landscape and the work of art are inextricably linked. It is also an art form that is created in nature, using natural materials such as soil, rock (bed rock, boulders, stones), organic media (logs, branches, leaves), and water with introduced materials such as concrete, metal, asphalt, or mineral pigments. The works frequently exist in the open, located well away from civilization, left to change and erode under natural conditions.

Participantes of this project was split in 8 groups to create some landart related to healthy lifestyle. So here are the results of our masterpieces.

TEAM 1: ROCK GUY If you want to stay solid as a rock (be healthy etc.) you need to support yourself (with exercise, diet, etc.)”

TEAM 2: TREE WITH LEAVES Cultivating more branches so you can make more shadows for yourself and the others” TEAM 5: STICKS ON THE WAY! Everyone has something to be creative and be active” TEAM 6: RUNNING FIGURE George represents the real essence of nature. Indeed, this piece of art symbolize the escape of humans to the unhealthy entities like the ones he's running away from. His position of running and the blond hair blow up, want to increase his dynamicity” The works remain in the nature and only photos and videos are witnesses of group work. It is a very good tool in informal education for develop creativity and team work.

8 Be active - be happy :) - Eliza

TEAM 7: "God's has given us the meditation temple to get energy for the people and to get any mental state you need"

TEAM 4: This represents the two paths someone may take in life and where these two paths may lead to. In any case things might be tough but we still have the chance to develop ourselves through hard circumstances Stone tower) „Everything in life has to be in harmony”

The rainbow comes out always after the storm - Riccardo

TEAM 3: Piotr Zyla - polish ski-jump, we build the place for him to jump :) actively”

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TEAM 8

Workshop: EGGsercise Have you ever thought that you can protect an egg from a 5m fall just with just 2 sheets of paper, some tooth picks, 2 balloons and a little bit of tape?

Our experience in Monteoru taught us that we can if we focus on teamwork and put our ideas together that the egg should be alive after the tragic fall.

Here's how: take the first paper and wrap the egg in it, take the other paper and make a cone in which you will put the wrapped egg. Inflate the balloons just a little bit and put one in each side of the cone. In the end put the tooth picks around the cone to keep the egg stable enough to sustain the fall.

The body is the temple of the soul.

Take care of it - Gloria

You are what you eat - Federica

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Workshop: DRUGS & ALCOHOL What are in fact alcohol and drugs? Well, both of them are drugs, which can be any substance that, when absorbed by the organism causes a physiological change in the body. Yes, unfortunately these things exist and attract more and more people, expecially the youngsters. We did this exchange to learn about how drugs and alcohol can affect our lives and how we can change that.

Why are people doing drugs? There are a lot of factors, like physical problems, unemployment, family problems, stress, but I think the most common are bad encourages and curiosity. You know how it’s said : „ Curiosity killed the cat.�. And the worst part is that the ones who are excited to try are the young people. While the age of people who wanna try drugs is getting lower and lower, more and more drugs are discovered.

Also, some of them just wanna try them for fun, to be cool around the other kids or to get attention from their parents. As for every problem there is a solution there are lots for drugs and alcohol too, but the sad thing is that nobody takes them in consideration. For example, we know that in almost every European country it is not allowed to sell alcohol and cigarettes to people under the age of 18. But this is one of the laws that people are used to ignoreing and lead teenagers to smokeing and drinking on the streets. In most countries around the European Union selling drugs is forbidden, but of course the dealers are still doing their jobs. In Latvia sintetic marijuana ( spice ) is easier to buy than cigarettes while in Cyprus is strictly forbidden and in Lithuania the users can go to jail.

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On the other side in Estonian police can’t do much which is why there are the most deaths because of overdosing, being more men who are using than women which is the same as in Italy. But the difference is major considering the fact that in Italy only 10% of population dies because of doing drugs. Even if in Poland people are pro marijuana, it is still illegal and the police treat smokers like dangerous criminals.

The offered solutions can be seen everywhere: campaigns against using drugs and drinking alcohol which sustain a healthy lifestyle and are addressed especially to the young people. Another thing to be implemented could be arts in order to let people express themselves and to let their imagination develop.

All in all, we believe that every person can be taught what is good for them but it’s also their choice if they want a healthy life or a disordered one.

USE OF ALCOHOL: by Cristel “I use alcohol every weekend or every second weekend. In this youth exchange every day. I do that to have fun, to talk to people easier and to get to know someone better. It is for fun. Some of the workshops somehow helped to change my thoughts about alcohol consumption, but I hear the facts about that all the time, so it is nothing new to me, but still worth discussing.”

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INTERCULTURAL NIGHT The second day also ended with an intercultural night organized by the other four countries, Croatia, Poland, Italy and Lithuania and included traditional food, drinks, costumes, songs and dances. Each country was presented from people from another country using videos, quizzes and theatrical performances. (e.g. Italy was presented by the Estonian participants).

Don't be negative, just be positive - Vineta

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INTERCULTURAL NIGHTS: by Airita “I feel sorry that we had four countries presenting their national cuisine in one evening, because there was not a lot of time to get a deep insight in each country's culture.

But positive is that each country was prepared to show the best they have, we enjoyed every single dish and are now inspired to visit new friends.�

Day 3

Workshop: WORLD COFFEE

On the third day of our project we did a workshop about the effects of an unhealthy lifestyle focusing on drugs and alcohol with the method called “World Coffee”.

It is a particular method used in group discussions. We split our 48-people group into six smaller ones and each group sat around the table to discuss a different topic. Each table was lead by a “moderator” who was in charge of helping the members properly discuss the assigned topic.

The different groups had to deal with 6 different problems, more precisely: mental, physical and social effects of drugs and alcohol.

Every 12-15 minutes the groups moved to an other table to discuss a different topic.

A friendly and informal environment was created, so everyone felt free to express opinions and share ideas.

We managed to gather a lot of information and create different posters in a very good way because each opinion was respected and tolerated even if was different from the rest.

At the end of the workshop each moderator shared their conclusions and everyone had the opportunity to widen their knowledge on this topic.

Always look on the bright side of life - Piotr

WORLD COFFEE: by Riccardo “I really enjoyed the world coffe workshop, because it gave the possibility to see the problems and many aspects of it - physical, mental - in different points of view. Each moderator was very careful to make me understand the point. This was definitely the most useful and meaningful activity we had.”

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Workshop: ACTIVE VS PASSIVE LIFESTYLE In the afternoon we had the 4th workshop about different kinds of lifestyle.

We were split into 8 multicultural groups and each of them were in charge of inventing a character with an active or passive lifestyle and describe their behaviour in a particular situation such as: at home, at school/work, in a youth exchange or on holiday.

After the discussion in groups we presented our posters, videos and made sketches.

The activity was interesting and creative because we could express our imagination through art and the final result was very funny. Each group created very original characters such as the participant alien Erazmien, the active Baloona and the lazy dog Narc.

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Karaoke night: The Cypriot participants, famous for their singing skills and with potential for an international career in singing, proposed to organize a karaoke night for all the participants. International and national songs were sung and everyone had a great time.

by Sofia “Karaoke night was great, me and Antonia had the idea about that, it was a secret idea. We had a lot of fun. I hope everyone had. �

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Workshop: DEBATE

Day 4

Debate was organized in a totally different way then we expected it will be. We split the room in two parts and every part had it's own meaning - agreeing or disagreeing with the topic which was provided. Every time we had to pick a side. They gave us 3 questions to discuss: 1. Do you believe that vegetarian eating effect people's health in the bad way?

2. Should the promotion/advertising of junk food in sports events be banned?

3. Do you agree that soft drugs should be legalized in the EU? Every of these three topics lead us to deep and interesting discussions. The first topic of the bad effects of being vegetarian, one side discussed the bad effects of eating meat, which lead to the conclusion that being vegetarian and not consuming meat is way healthier than being not vegetarian. Yet the other team opposed that many nutrients that are found in the meat cannot be replaced and meat is very important part of traditional countries' cuisines and traditions. However the team that took the ‘in between’ side proposed the idea that bad effects of vegetarianism might occur only if the diet of the vegetarian is not well balanced and thought through.

In the second topic people aldo split up in three groups, the opposing group proposed the ideas that the junk food advertisements should not be banned because the junk food promotors are not responsible for the audiences health and life decisions. Also the opposing group supported the idea that banning the junk food advertisements would negatively impact the business. However, the supportive group offered the opinion that junk food advertisements have the great impact for the most vulnerable group of people - children. They said that children form bad eating habits by seeing advertisements during social events. The group which supported the middle ground proposed the opinion that advertisements should not be banned yet it should be restricted and be played or placed in certain places and times so it won't affect kids as much.

The third question of debate was discussed and the opposing team defended the idea that any drugs shouldn’t be legalized because they are threat to the society, as driving on drugs or people attending social events after using drugs. Hence, other group disagreed and said that drugs should be legalized as they are less harmful than tobacco or alcohol. Also this group said that if soft drugs would be legalized people would use it safely because they would know the ingredients of what exactly they are using so overdose would be avoided. The middle ground did not offer any opinion to the debates.

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DEBATE: by Elena “I was very interested in topics, so I liked participating in that debate. It was very useful to hear different opinions on the same topic as they make a huge part of my life since I am a vegetarian.

It was nice to hear other opinions about legalizing drugs. I found out about other new aspects that I did not even know before. That is why I liked it so much. It was very nice that all participants were so respectful to others. Everything went very smoothly. It was good that Tolea managed to ask everyone, so no one could be the dominant one. Some arguments were very strong, so they changed my point of view and my perspective to life. The topics were chosen very accurately.

This was the most useful workshop in the whole project. World coffee was also very useful to me.�

HIKING At the evening some of us went to hike in the hills. We expected to see the sunset. But it didn't happen in the way we have planned. None of us knew where we were going. We wanted to discover new ways to reach the top of the hill, so being in this enthusiastic mood, we trusted our intuition and got lost in the forest after all. But we weren't scared at the time. Probably because of that we had the craziest people around ourselves. Our coordinator Jack kept our mood in the positive way all the way. When we felt tired and frustrated, his "banana dances" made us feel energized again. Despite not reaching our destination and missing out on the sunset, we had a lot of fun together and memories to remember when we get old.

Live every moment and generate memories the important thing is to take them with you until the last moment. SMILE - Airita

Metaxia - And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.

What is essential is invisible to the eye.TLP

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KUBA'S PERFORMANCE IN FESTIVAL “I liked it very much, it was really suprising and I felt that it is good idea for such festival to happen because it is a very small city and there was lot of people and it was really cool to see that big event in the place where you would not expect that.

Firstly, I know Tolea for few years now and I presented my skills in each project, so he knows my beatboxing skills. Secondly, his idea was that it would be a very bonding experience for our group - to be together in the event. It was our thing, it was not just my performance, it was our presence. I did it to feel energy, I enjoyed it very much. To sum up, because Tolea know that I am good, there was opportunity to promote our project and have some good memories.

I perform regularly for last 10 years, I am not afraid of big audience, but I had not have performed for a while. I was not nervous because it was a short performance, I knew that if anything goes not as planned, I still have a support from the group. It made me feel relaxed, I just wanted to give the best. ”

FESTIVAL: A small interview for “Sweet bread” shop “We have a bakery in Buzau county. It is 20 years old. We are producing bread, using traditional recipe, the one that my grandmother used to make. It is all natural - with milk, eggs, chocolate and turkish delight. We do not add any extra flavour to it, so it is healthy. There are two types we make - one with whole wheat and other with usual white. This is our national sweet cake, people usually make it during winter holidays and Easter, but we eat it throughout the year. It is very "Romanian" if I can say so.”

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Workshop: FISH MARKET Fish market was one of the best workshops we have done in the project. They gave us task to create our own Erasmus+ projects.

We made few groups and started to brainstorm ideas. After two hours of discussing and creating sketch we presented our work.

We had created projects about efficiency in daily life, environmental protection, sexual literacy and etc. Most attention got ideas about healthy lifestyle and "Naked" cooking. In process we discovered things in our current project what could be done better and applied it to our creations. We hope that one day our projects will came true.

FISHMARKET: by George “It was a very nice workshop, I liked my team, we integrated in, it forced us to become more creative in regard to how to make a project and what kind of things should be in a project. The workshop was good in a way that no one was imposing ideas, we were working harmonically, we had a great team. It was one of the best workshops.

I believe that some of the odead may become reality.�

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Don't worry be happy - Zivile

Day 5 The day started with an evaluation of the project so far, using creative methods. And also we divided in two groups, one was designated to create the video and the other one to create the leaflets an the project brochure.

Life is a gift - Laisvis

It's OK! - Renato

Just do it - Petar Everything happens for a reason - Elena

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TRIP DAY The trip day was devoted to exploring the regions around Monteoru. Firstly, we visited the Berca Mud volcanoes, which is located in Scorțoasa commune close to Berca,where are small mud volcano-shaped structures consisting of mud and natural gases. The visit continued to the church of Ciolanu, where we also visited the open air sculpture exhibition.

The day finished with a fun barbecue, which is Romania's national sport.

Love and be loved - Kristin

Write yours life as it is going to be your favourite book - Annabel

Live your life to the fullest - Lea

Hakuna matata! - Devis

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ACTIVE LIFESTYLE: by Allar “Active is when you have an idea and you do it and you try to move forward in life, not to be stuck in your comfort zone.”

Make love not war - Rafał

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PARTICIPANTS: bySofia “The participants are great, I have been to other youth exchanges and people are always nice, but this is the first time with so many people, I am used to 25 participants, but this time we are about 50. I know more people well than in other exchanges. When there were 20 people, I would know about 7, now I know well about 25. I am also satisfied with my country. I think this is one of the best exchanges I have been to. “

Healthy lifestyle is mostly based on being in good terms with yourself - Giorgos

Life is too short to waste your time Antonia Shiamma

An active lifestyle will make you enjoy life to the fullest! - Antonia Michailidi

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small talks

ACTIVE LIFESTYLE: by Airita “It is my first year in the university. I do a lot of sports.

I go to sports classes which gives me a chance to try different sports. I go to the gym as well - I like my muscles to be in action. My inner muscles are very important, they make me feel healthy. Besides that I work for our student parliament where I am responsible for sports' activities management. So I promote active lifestyle between students.”

ABOUT TOLEA: by Beata “I am very impressed with how Tolea organizes the project. He is handling everything great. As I have made projects as well, I know that things can change suddenly and you have to adjust.

Tolea has ability to do that. He always finds the best way out of the trouble as John Lennon said: "There are no problems, only solutions".

DOGS: by Allar “I think the dogs are really dirty here, because they are homeless. Well, they have homes, but not with human. They try to find food on streets since Romanians leave a lot of trash on the ground. I would not touch them, because I am afraid of deseases.”

FOOD: by Ignazio ”We eat a lot of pasta, pizza, but I prefer rice. I enjoy the food here.”

Sarah & Oscar

HIKING: by Laisvius “This is my first time in Romania. I cannot compare Romanian hills to Lithuanian mountains, their hills are much higher than highest hill in Lithuania. For example, hill next to our pension is about 400m above sea level, while highest hill in Lithuania is 200m. I have been hiking in Slovakia and Poland, and I did not expect such a good landscape here in Romania. I will come back and probably not alone, because I hiked together with participants from Latvia, Cyprus, Lithuania and I think they will encourage themselves to come back too. We did some morning hikes and this was the first time I woke up at 5 am during holiday.

There were another 7 people with me and we feel very productive after such a good hike full of spectacular views in early morning.�

Work while they sleep. Learn while they party. Save while they spend. Live like they dream -Mihaela

YOLO! - Adina

The secret of change is to focus all your energy not to fighting the old but to building the new - Carina You can't control the future, can't change the past, so enjoy the moment - Cristel

Don't be negative or positive, be in balance - Kris

It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be - Jack

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Extracurricular activities Whenever the participants had free time, they organized some extra activities on their own.

Such activities included hiking, yoga, karate, art exhibition, t-shirt DIY cutting workshop, hair-braiding workshop, hiking, workout sessions, meditation and sleeping in the woods.

Sex and love is the best drug - Egert

Only way to move forward is to start - Kuba Live your day like it will be the last one - Ioana

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Try to suck less everyday - Alessio

Good things come often than bad ones - Mike

Live your life and let the others live - Demetrio

Do sport, eat good, think positive and look good - Adelina

If you go to Italy, you need to make connections with mafia - Allar

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Our team: Metaxia - Athena Gloria - Eliza Mihaela - Adelina Federica - Mike Zivile - Renats Rafal - Laisvidas

Special thanks to Tolea ‘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.’

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