Tuesday 29 June 2010

The last "Swedish course"

After 15 years of non-stop school times I could not even imagine that I would enjoy studying. That's why I made a break. So, when I came to Sweden, I could not imagine that one of my favorite things here (next to the football trainings of course) could be sitting in the class and learning Swedish. The more suprising is that I have actually learnt some.

The classes were interesting due to very interational group that we had, people from Australia, Russia, South Africa and so on and also the teacher was from Brazil.

So, on Saturday we had our last meeting at the caffe owned by one of the students, Valda and we were having good time with the Swedish language...

My and Sanja's life is much more emptier without the class. On Monday we were already missing the homework:)

Janika

Thursday 17 June 2010

Central station for EVS in Active

Since I was actively encouraged to blog about EVS, I will give it a try.
I was an EVS volunteer myself in 2004/2005 so I guess I know how it feels to volunteer in Active office. Since then - I have experienced 19 volunteers in Active office and we are going to welcome 3 more from September 2010.

How does it look like to be mentor for the volunteers?

First, they arrive and they know very little about Active office work, about the town and the life here. We go through Active's basic idea so we all know what we are working for, we are getting used to each other, the volunteers are usually "thrown to water" to learn how to swim by writing some application for a seminar or a campaign. The first days may look pretty empty or like "too little to do", but with the deadlines for applications - everything starts rolling. Seminars, reports, buying tickets, coordinating arrivals, departures, helping with visa, writing some more applications, going to Active seminars, meeting our members. That's what we do. And the time flows and all of a sudden I look into the callendar and I see that there is only two months left with these people who were strangers (most of the time) to me and then became collegues, we've found the ways to work together, to talk, to joke (or not) about certain things, to trust each other in work, to count on each other. And then they leave (most of the time) the town and go their way. Sometimes still involved in Active and sometimes not caring for Active at all.

I will not reveal anythinig new by writing that each volunteer is very different from the others. There is no template. And that is why there is no template for dealing with them either.

Some people like to come to the office early, some prefer sleeping longer in the mornings and work long in the evening, some love writnig projects, some prefer reading information for Newsletter, some like getting very clear instructions and detailed orders, some like getting just a first spark and then they do their thing. Some are here for the social part of the organisation, some come for being in Sweden and some want to fight for what Active believes in. And of course - all the combinations of the three.

It's very rarely easy to say bye bye. The only part that makes it a bit easier is knowing that there will be new volunteers coming. Full of ideas. Full of expectations. Full of motivation. And that I have the responsibility and honour to introduce them into this work and world and make it interesting for them. At the same time, it is up to each and everyone what they will take from here and how they experience the time in our office.

I learn every year. From some I learn to "take it easy", from some I learn structure, from some I learn about other countries, from some I learn how to go for one's dreams, from some I learn to reflect on things I have never been thinking of and from all of them I learn about relations between poeple.

To host EVS volunteers is incredibly enriching experience that gives me a lot in life. And the memories carry me further.

And I think I will blog here more often bringing some more concrete examples of our life here. If the volunteers let me in of course ;-)

Kristina

Wednesday 16 June 2010

Black sheep has started rolling

YES, finally our new campaign in Active has had it's first activity. This weekend (10th - 14th June) we had the first Black sheep seminar!
8 people from 8 different European countries came in the Active office in Örebro on thursday. Some of them made it on time, others missed some trains, but at the end of the day everyone was happy to be here and to talk with the old Active friends.

The seminar started on friday where we had a guest lecturer - Helena Wannberg to tell us something about Alcohol in families.

After that Maik Duennbier had the rest of the day to talk about the Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention of the Right of the Child and it's connection to alcohol issues.





Since we had a hard working day, we went to the famous Active restorant - Karishma and had a nice and spicy dinner, that was followed by a long talking walk for some people and watching a football match infront of the TV for others.


The next day was very interesting. We had our sessions together with 30 people from UNF, so we got a lot of information about their project FAKE FREE and talked a lot about the impression of alcohol, people's expectations and reactions about it. In the afternoon we had a nice walk in the town with the intention to notice how big is the media influence of alcohol around us, and the conclusion was that only for a 15 min walk, we had a lot of materials.
The rest of the day was covered by our guest lecturers Linnea Forsberg, talking about the project "Skåll for barnen" and Anja Karinsdotter, presenting the project "Vit Jul". A variety of ideas were flowing in our heads, so we decided, in order to keep the creativity alive and the energy visable, we will have Olympic games in the evening. =)
Me and Anja were leading the "show" and we divided all participants, considering the place they come from, in 5 groups from 5 different regions in the world (Europe 1, Europe 2, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Sweden). They all had to invent a game that will present their region, so we had 5 teams that were competing in playng 5 different games. It was very exciting, the team spirit was all around, we were surrounded by a lot of energy and weird looks from the people that were passing by us. But we didn't care, we had fun!
I can only say that night was looooong, especially for the domino players who ended their game around 03:30h in the morning.

Just like that, the last working day had come. On the agenda we had to do a lot of work focused only on our Black sheep activities in future, but we had to add some more materials, so we worked, and talked, and planed, but it wasn't enough. We had lunch on the roof of our building, and than again, discussions and ideas all around, but nope, still not enough. We had dinner out in a nice restorant that we couldn't decide if it was greek or turkish... untill at the end the people that worked there told us it was 60% turkish and 40% greek.. =) So after the dinner and a lot of laughs, jokes and information about the incredibly smart boy Marco from Macedonia, we ended up in the office again, where we worked untill 00:00h. Yes, it was midnight, and we still had the laptops opened, trying to get the google wave right, a lot of creative names and slogans were written all around the white board, while others were trying to make some pictures on the wall, from the light of the projektor. It looked something like this...

But that is all part of our connection to Active. Eventhough we were exhausted at the end, we stayed until the morning, talking, watching movies, laughing and saying "Good bye and see you soon in Norway". It was a weekend to remember. Seing the motivation of this great group of people to work together, to make some change for the world they live in was amazing. I can't wait to go to our next meeting in Norway and to follow every activity that will be organised under the name of Black sheep campaign! =)

Sanja

Tuesday 8 June 2010

The seminar is coming

And the last few days we have been quite busy for us, making final preparations - travels, accommodation, speakers and synchronizing with Fake Free schedule.

The seminar is so popular, that a participant was even asking last week something about this line: Is the seminar starting tomorrow? ;)

For me, it was a pleasure to communicate with people from all over the Europe during the arrangements, and I hope this weekend will have a good outcome for the plans and thing to do in the next few months. And to see all these people in real life now.


Alari

Monday 7 June 2010

Introducing Active and European Volunteer Service in our Swedish course

Just few hours after arriving from Iceland, during the lunch break on Monday, we were talking with Sanja about our Swedsih course.

Sanja: "And you know, on Wednesday we have this talking lesson with all the Swedish groups."
Me: "mhm"
Sanja: "So, Margareta asked me that could I talk about Active...would you also want to talk with me?"
Me: "mhm of course...how was your weekend anyw....WAIT...You mean like that we are the performers, 1,5 hour in front of the people and talking in Swedish all this time ???
Sanja: "Yes."
Me: "HMMM...Ok. I have already some ideas:) Alari stands there with the flag and we cover him with the stickers"

So, on Wednesday we went to our language class half an hour before the class starts. and15 minutes of it we were trying to hang up the Active flag - we were successfully pulling down one curtain holder during this progress and almost destroyed some flowers during the progress. In the end we used successfully the combiantion of coat racks and TV + "Content matters" booklets to ensure all construction. We had prepared a small test with multiply answer choices. So, we created 2 teams which started answering questions based on the facts from the "Content matters" booklet. Teams used their logical thinking and got successfully 5-6 correct answers from 8. As an award, they got the same booklets with information.After the small test, Sanja presented Active, our vision and aims - that ended up with a lot of questions by the listeners, they were especially interested in our EVS project, so we explained them also how is it possible to become an EVS voluneer, that they could consider participating in this project in the future.

After Sanja's presentation came Janika's. The one had a lot of photos, some text and loads of Active spirit. We finished the evening with the "Global hangover" movie and gave out any kind of materials about Active.

It was somehow strange to be in front of the class and talk in Swedish, but it was fun.
Alari commented Sanja's presentation like this: "She was talking like a real Swedish person." Maybe the reason of the comment was that Alari was sitting there 1,5 hours, understanding almost nothing, but maybe not.

Anyways, thank You Margareta for this opportunity:)

Janika