Day 7, the end of the project!

Again, sorry for the delay of this final blogpost of about one week. That left some time for reflection and final evaluation. The team worked on a evaluation and we found the weak, but also our strong organisational points. Your feedback sheets helped us a lot! Thanks again for filling them out. If delegates need our evaluation, to organise something similar, please contact us.

Big thanks to our camerateam (aspiring students of journalism!). Their documentary will be released in some weeks. It will be posted in our facebook group ( http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=135406246544914 --  There are already other videos posted)

From my and Mara's side, big thanks to Hamma, the initiator of this project and the head behing IKJA e.V. Here he is in the middle in front of some of our delegates:

It was great fun for us, the workshop leaders Mara and me. We learnt as much as we hoped you learnt, dear delegates. We all hope to see you soon again, in your home countries or back in Germany.

I hope this blog, representing just a very small part of our project and its' organisation, helps you to reflect what took place or where we have been.

Day 6, "Hamburg" Blogpost by George (Romania)

This blogpost comes eight days too late, due to technical issues and the organisational wrap-up of the conference left no time for editing. Anyway, here it is, George's (Romania) Blogpost!

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Waking up at 6.00 am after going to sleep at 5.00 am is never easy, but today I had no other choice because it was Hamburg Time!!! "Heute war ich ein hamburger", as people might say.
Today I broke 3 stereotypes:
1. German trains are never late: yes, they can be late
2. All german cities are cristal clean: no, they are not, but that only makes them more fascinating (note from Jannes: We started our trip at the alternative district "Sternschanze")

3. Germans never emigrate: yes, sometimes even germans need to emigrate to other countries.
The day in Hamburg started out with a visit at a museum depicting the history of german emigration (Ballinstadt, a new and well-designed interactive museum in the renovated halls where actually Germans started their trip to America!). I have to admit that for me and for the other this museum was a very big surprise. I was expecting something boring to be very honest (maybe the only one hour sleep had something to do with it also), many pictures, all explained in german, of course. But no, actually the museum was very interesting, interactive and everything was also translated in english. I think the best word to describe the museum after a one and a half hour visit is “impressive”, because i really felt the athmosphere of when the museum was the departure point for emigrants.
After that we went for a small tour of the city. 

I could write pages about Hamburg, but I am going to settle with 3 key words: contrast, diverse, fascinating. Many people from all over the world live in Hamburg, making it one of the most, if not the most cosmopolitan city in Germany. If you want, you can find traces of immigration at every step.
Again, like in Hanover, the tour consisted of mainly 2 activities: walking and taking pictures, many many pictures. And a lot of walking too. But it was all right because you could see somethig interesting at each corner. We saw the Television Tower, a very nice and beautiful park, the Town Hall and many other nice places.
Yes, you can either love Hamburg or hate it, there are no other options. The only thing you will not be, for sure, is feeling disappointed.

http://www.ballinstadt.net/BallinStadt_emigration_museum_Hamburg/

Day 5: City Hall, German Presentation, New Hotel

In this busy night, the last evening before the last evening and after a 3 hours meeting with the 6 organisers, the blogentry for Friday (Day 5) can finally be published. It is written by Loredana from Romania. I lived and travelled with her for more than one week in Galaciuc and Bucharest, so it is a pleasure for me to show her my Germany and Hannover one year after we met in Romania. Youth-in-Action makes it possible! So here is her juicy text from last night, a blogging session between Youtube and discussions about life...

Our blogger Lore at the intercultural card game (with special rules)

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This feels like homework, especially when you have ʻthe teacherʼ aka the editor in the background saying you need to write the text tonight. Ok, so today was different because we had to switch homes and also had the local tv come pay us a visit, which made us all feel like movie stars because we were interviewed about the project and our whole experience in Hannover. The trip to the new hotel was very fun, considering we were playing guitar and waving flags all the way to the bahnhof. We were all already tired when we got to the city hall to meet with the mayor so some of us rested their eyes for a bit, including the Estonian birthday boy, Roger...and then he had his eyes wide open when we got to the Red Light District. But he was the only one excused.

Some serious stuff now: in the morning we had the main activity of the exchange, discussing the different situations regarding immigrants in each partner country and the positive and negative influences on the host population. The evening was a moment of relaxation and learning because we walked around the city centre, visiting old buildings and monuments and before having to write this blog entry we attended the German presentation, enjoying traditional cuisine and beverages and testing our knowledge about the German culture with some well devised quiz. Now I have to finish up because the wake up call is in 5 hours and we have to go to Hamburg in the morning. So far, this project proved interesting enough and I hope our visit in Hamburg and future activities will be useful enough as well for the participants as for the organizers.

I must say I liked the other hostel room better because this one has a certain ʻje ne se quoiʼ aroma about it..but so far itʼs not very persistent. So while other participants are out in the city, I am ʻstuckʼ here with the editor, having to write my impressions on the previous day, getting inspired by alcohol.

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Additions by me, Jannes: Our delegates visited the “Auswanderermuseum Ballinstadt” in Hamburg. This adds to our discussion about emigration on Sunday, our last day. About the aroma in Loredanaʼs room I just can say that we are living in a hotel at Hannover “Steintor”, the party mile as well as close to the redlight district.

Mara in the organisers room

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With many Romanians I had controversial discussions about Sinti and Roma/Gypsies. The same came up on Friday again, when the Bulgarians presented their facts about immigration in their society. He also describes some of the childish things that happened in between (Jannes).


Ivan's impression on Day 5:

I woke up this morning with a good sense. I knew that today was another interesting day of the project. We brought some statistics from Bulgaria about the immigration process and we had a meeting with the mayor in Hannoverʼs bombastic town hall. As I said I had a good sense for the day that became even stronger when I found in my envelope for the Secret Angel (note of the editor: Itʼs a game with a secret follower for the whole week) a note in which I was invited to a meeting in 3 a.m. in the morning, but strangely not by my secret angel. And it seemed that nothing could make my mood bad even when I found toothpaste line on the door handie, must be of that Estonian guy. And as every day we needed a good energizer. And it happened…We went outside to the hostelʼs garden through some never seen obstacles like trees and tents etc., conducted by Jannes and the other organizators, but with closed eyes.

After that the presentations started. I learnt much about the other countries’ problems with their immigration and we showed the situation in Bulgaria. Although it is not directly called “immigration”, the situation of “Gypsies” (or more correctly: Sinti and Roma) came up. I hope all the participants understood that we are open – minded for the immigrants, we accept religious and cultural differences and we are trying hard on integrating gypsies and I am sure we will succeed in making it. Itʼs a challenging discussion on how you can integrate “gypsies” without making them feel that they loose their identity and culture – I guess this is the same with all kinds of immigration.

And about the meeting with the mayor – I have to say only nice words. I learnt a lot about the big support for the immigrants in Hannover, resulting in a good integration. I also understood where the places of the treasurer and all the counselors are in the Assembly hall. By literally stepping on Hannoverʼs map in the splendid hall, he also explained the rough structure of the city – the Autobahn, the green places....

(Picture taken from http://www.worldharmonyrun.org/deutschland/news/2010/0619 . Hope it's OK to use it. Thanks in advance!)

Ivan, Bulgaria

Day 4: Forum Theatre, picture discussion and visit to AWO migration service Hannover

For Day 4 our bloggers were: Alex (Romania), Steliana (Bulgaria) and Marika (Estonia). I planned the Forum Theatre activity, for which two groups had to write a play about a given plot. Both groups had to act out their plays and the audience is allowed to intervene in the second round of playing the drama. It is a proven method (Check Wikipedia etc.), however I think that the groups need at least two hours of time to write a play, otherwise it is missing depth....anyway, here is what our blogging group says:

In Forum theatre we learned about problems immigrants and tourists come across and that if you see something and think it`s wrong if you intervene you can solve it.

Sometimes the worker in the immigration office does not behave in a humane way, for example they don`t give enough advise and help for the immigrants. If the officer puts his self in the immigrant situation then he will understand and he will become more humane and the story might have a different ending. We also understood from the theatre activity that you as an immigrant you don`t belong anywhere and you often feel that you are a refugee from society.

For an immigrant it is important to learn the language because it`s an internal code to this culture, it is a bridge between the immigrant and the new society. Often immigrants come to other countries and maybe they don`t know all the rules, searching someone to give advise but no one wants to help, or it`s hard to find someone that is ready to help.

In the photo activity we saw different pictures (every delegation from each country had to bring five picutres that describe the situation of immigration in the country) and we learnt that usually the immigrant thought that he will have a better life, but when they are here they might face a cultural shock, or they may have language barriers, which brings them to build a new society inside the guest society (“ghettoisation”).

We could understand from today activities three main points:

• that some immigrants feel that they don`t belong anywhere, and hard for them to be accepted from the home citizen.
• One theory that was uttered was the following: It depends where immigrants come from. For example if a European citizen from a rich country goes to another country that has a weak economy then you will be accepted from the first second and she/he gets quickly integrated. If the opposite happens then they have to work hard to be integrated.
• Immigrants and home citizens people can be a team and work together efficiently to reach success. Often, the host countries need the immigrants as a workforce to increase their economy.

Our visit to AWO migration Hannover organization gave us more information that in Germany the immigrants have a chance to get integrated in the society using different activities like free German language courses, counseling and other different projects. We have seen how important is to have organizations like AWO in another countries to make the situation easier for immigrants.

Project Day 3: Interview about activities

Itʼs 23:38. Relaxing with some Drum and Bass music and sitting right to me is Roger from Estonia and Georgie from Bulgaria, and also three Herrenhäuser beers. Left is the vibrating subwoofer.

Jannes: Roger, George, how are you?

Roger: I feel....uhm..good. But I was tired because of the University movie we have seen in the International office of Universität Hannover. I was sleeping there, what a shame.

Georgie: I am fine. When I was in Poland, I said I am Georgie form Georgia...but I am from Bulgaria. Just had my country presentation an hour ago.

Jannes: What is your key learning experience today?

Georgie: Maraʼs Youth-in-Action presentation was great. It showed all the possibilities on EUʼs youth field.

Roger: The presentation was not boring. Mara was always giving examples. It was amazing and surprising. Regarding the intercultural card game activity today, we had to deal without language, so the new players on each of the card table wrote sth. down because we were strictly not allowed to use language.

Georgie: My main learning was also connected to the intercultural card game (Secret Rules ;)), and when we evaluated it, the gamesʼ adpation to immigration, itsʼ chances and problems were interesting.

Jannes: How did you like the quiz about Europe?

Roger:...we call it Kuldvillak in Estonia...

Jannes: I guess itʼs sth. like Jeopardy, where you get more money for more difficult questions.

Georgie: It was a good way to feel the EU close to us.

Roger: Embarassing for me: I did not know any answer. The other team was three-times stronger then us. It was like a sport for me. Heavy sport even, a true competition. Anyway, in Estonia we say: “When  you lose, you actually win.”

Jannes: That sounds like Giuseppe saying today when he lost all rounds in the intercultural card game: “Bad in the game, good in the love.”

Roger: We also say “If you are not lucky in card games, then you are lucky in love.”

Jannes: Please tell me one positive and one negative experience from today.

Georgie: During our Bulgarian presentation tonight I again had problems with starting the songs at the right time, but this is a tradition in all of my like 20 Youth-in-Action and ERASMUS Bulgarian country presentations so far. My highlight today were the Herrenhäuser Gardens...so beautiful. I took many photos of the fountains and the ducks.

Roger: I was sometimes too tired and bored...I simply canʼt sit. I am too hyperactive.

Jannes: You need more Energizers, or what? (Info for readers: An Energizer is a small group activity for 5-10 minutes to learn names or to move around to keep active)

Roger: Maybe yes. Or more coffee.

Jannes: Thereʼs an Energizer, at least every two hours to keep you awake and active, but we will adapt your feedback of course.

Roger:...postive was: I like to communicate. Itʼs like you exchange jokes and conversations...and everything. I am Estonian, I think in an Estonian way....and I was forgetting Estonian and was already thinking in English language. When I start to talk with one of my four fellow Estonian delegates I accidentally started to speak English.

Jannes: Good to hear, this usually happens when you stay abroad for some weeks. What are you doing tonight?

Roger: Maybe the Italians go to Hannover City-centre again, they have another birthday everyday. And my birthday is tommorrow. Still amazed by my first flight, and the gravity effects on my stomach

Jannes: ...Just some final thoughts about the content. I mean, this is what the project is mainly about. I donʼt care about birthdays, hehe...

Georgie: It was a very useful day because there are not so many projects were youngsters are able to learn so much about their opportunities as a citizen of the EU. The presentation again of Youth-in-Action I remember...

Roger: What comes to my mind is the sharing with Romanians and their language. I can read their language, Russian alphabet, but I canʼt understand it. When we went eating, Romanians and Estonians are always sitting together, and I wonder why we always sit together. Germany is very new to me, itʼs my first time here...and unfortunately I dontʼt have so many chances to go there again.

On the picture: The blog team below. Left and right are two other delegates who just jumped into the picture (Reeli and Mailis) without requesting it

First thoughts and impressions from our project's delegates

This group post has been put together under the influence of some Tuica (a Romanian liquor) and a dizzy head, caused by Romanian dances and pure fat (Supposedly a Romanian specialty). For me as a blog editor, itʼs actually harder to manage a group blog than I thought, particularly after 13 hours of this conference day. I hope the result is worth re-reading next week, when our delegates are back home again.

Catalin from Romania:

Today was the day, the big day, the great day. The day we felt that we are not so different and we can pass the language barriers. The Romanians had such a great time with the others because they knew how to get along, they were eager to find out information and stuff. We launched into a great adventure, an expedition in the Romanian realm, a realm of crazies and beverages and holy water... Oh the holy water, I mean that was the sparkle, I saw the sparkle in their eyes actually, it was the thing that launched them in our realm. If itʼs too much too handle, if I m too poetic and too idealist, blame Romania, it is her who made me who I am today.

Etien from Bulgaria:

Quite exciting day. I learnt much about different cultures. Guisseppe has a birthday the day before and ... unfortunately, we are in the same room. Soo... we Bulgarians woke up very early in the morning (about 05:00), when they came back : and fortunately, after 2 hours of strange noises ( I was very sleepy) it was time for breakfast. My key learning point: Italians are like ... party animals.)

OOO, I almost forgot. I met some Estonians for the very first time! They learnt how to say "whatʼs up in Bulgarian" and that means kild. But what I understood is that they are really modern (breaking stereotypes) and they are second in drinking (of course, just WATER, what else can it be ;) )in the whole Europe. Yeah, this project seems to be very ... interesting.

Reeli from Estonia:

Today has crashed all my expectations. I wasnʼt thinking that I will have so much fun on my first day, my reddened cheeks are a telling me that. Most important of all, I have met new people who all are very open-minded.

Also, during the workshops I understand that this week won't be boring, for example sitting and discussing only. It will be awesome – I am sure. We will also finally see Hannover city and meet the mayor. Not only the hostelʼs rabbits – which I have seen jumping outside when we dined.

Today I flew for the first time with a plane. I was a bit scared, but it reminded me of a rollercoaster ride.

Blogging from the Youth in Action Project in Hannover!

Coffee Break, 6 September 2011, 11:09, First Blog Entry

After heavily planning for the last days there was simply no time to blog. Our first organisers meeting took place on Sunday, including a three-hour discussion on changing the shopping list for drinks and snacks. Luckily, on monday we had ten more hours to set up our conference room and to catch people from the airport. Finally, here comes the first blog entry from the youth-hostel in Hannover!

Mara-Lisa and me are the workshop-leaders and are just getting warm for the next conference days. Happy to be here! Fortunately, the weather improved, not to disappoint our 20 delegates from Italy, Estonia, Bulgaria and Romania. They have just seen Hannover between the airport and the hostel, which is not very close to the city-centre. I lived here as a student for three years and I am ready to do a city tour with the delegates on Friday – itʼs their first glimpse outside of the hostel and the workshop environment. The youth-hostel provides good accomodation, is very modern and feels like a hotel, including rabbits jumping outside in the garden.

As one of the workshop-leaders, this is a particular challenging conference for me, because this is my first conference not being organised from the AIESEC network. This means group rules and project management techniques are dealt with in a different way – letʼs say in a more “last-minute way.”

During the next days our international delegates will write more blog entries, under the editing dictatorship of me. Stay tuned.

Jannes