22.1.2013
DAY 1
Since everyone have arrived the previous day, we had just the enough amount of time to rest and just wonder what’s going to happen tomorrow. Going to breakfast we probably had the first contacts with the group as individuals.
What’s more important trough fun activities, concerning team building, working in groups we got to meet each other, hear about where do all others coming from, what’s the story behind our names.
Finally, in the afternoon we got to meet our trainer Mary. We talked about GSL, heard a lot of their work and started to learn a lot more about stepping out and taking leadership. We got to hear what others plan to do with their projects, their kind of thinking on certain topics etc. The day finished hanging out as a group and sharing experiences.
23.1.2013
DAY 2
The travel to Prokuplje occupied almost all the time from the second day of the training. Our group was a part of a debate concerning the topic “Together for interculturalizm”. It was an educational and empowering debate on which all of us had the chance to become more familiar with the problems Roma people and other minorities in Serbia have. We found it amazing that they engage them self and make projects in order to try to change their position and rights, improve their lifestyle in Serbia; trying to involve both minorities and Serbians working together and sorting out the problems.
Later during the day, coming back brought us to the workshop which tough us how to think out of the box. Thinking of problems and viewing them globally actually brings better results when we implement them local.
To sum up, it was a tiring but still a day full of learning and embracing a new way if seeing how problems should be solved.
24.1.2013
DAY 3
We began the day by talking what we learned the day before, we had to present our successful moments in life to the group, and then some of the participants talked openly about their privacy.We watched a movie that has inspired us to work as a team and we haven’t looked at things from one perspective, but we saw things from multiple points of view.One of the activities was to determine what skills should a leader have.We have made the first step in writing a project proposal on our visions and mission within our projects.Today we organized a cultural evening where representatives of all of the countries presented their country and culture to other members of seminar. Participants presented in various ways the history and culture of their country through presentations and national dishes and drinks.After the official presentation of all countries, representatives of Serbian organizations presented their places of origin.CYE018 distributed souvenirs to all participants . Then they organized intercultural entertainment, where everyone was relaxed and well entertained.
25.1.2013
DAY 4
Fourth day of training was very interesting. We had a chance to discuss about UN millennium goals, which inspired us to talk about our perspective of this topic. After that, each participante had a task to introduce himself and talk about his vision in front of the group. In the second part of the day we saw two presentations. The first one was about how we should behave while presenting our future projects in front of the audience and donors. The other presentation showed us how to write business plans for our projects, which we started to write after…
In the evening, we had great time in Spark with trumpets.
26.1.2013
DAY 5
Today getting up seemed a lot harder than usual cause we partied our selves out the last night.But doing a quick impulse energizer put our concentration into the right place. We had a conversation about our role models and it was interesting to hear what the group members consider to be a role model which reflects a lot about our personalities and personal goals. After that we proceeded to the computer lab, finally starting to write our business plans. We got a lot of help from Mary, Sanja and Salin with the writing so in the end we were very satisfied with our work for the day. After lunch we got the rest of the day just for us, so we could work a little bit or sleep. In the evening all of us sit together in the lobby talking about our projects, our time here and just having some fun.
27.1.2013
DAY 6
We started our working day with expressing ourselves, what we have done, learned previous day and we were talking about our concerns. The most of us had the same worries about presentation of our project. After short discussion we continued to write our project for the rest of the day. After hard day we deserved night out so we went to a club.
28.1.2013
DAY 7
The day started group work, where we’ve talked about our short description of our projects. After the workshop we went to visit Mayor’s Office of Nis in which we were hosted by the city councilor for youth and sports. After a constructive conversation at the Mayor’s office, we visited Youth Office of Nis and Media Center Nis where we talked about their current projects and work they do on the local level. We got a number of interesting and useful information and it was a pleasure to learn that these organizations exist and do a great work. Once we finished, we headed to Cafe-restaurant Pleasure where we had a very good lunch. We returned to the regional center, where we continued with further activities and working on our budgets. We finished the day in a relaxing atmosphere filled with laugh and interesting games.
29.1.2013
DAY 8
We started our day with the usual morning presentations which aims to improve our confidence and awareness how other see us. Our trainer Mary showed us how we should make Power Point presentations for our projects. We saw some nice presentations to help us. We spend the afternoon working on our presentations with help from our trainers and, on the evening, everyone had a chance to present their projects for the first time. Later, whole group chat and laugh until they went to sleep.
30.1.2013
DAY 9
Today as the previous days, we worked hard. Some of us were finishing the project and the others started to work on their powerpoint presentations. After we were done, we began practicing and helping each other. We continued to practice, practice, practice…all day, all night…
31.1.2013
DAY 10
We spend our day mostly practicing our public speech and correcting our presentation. We had so much fun doing it and it was really impressive to see how each of us is improving. In the afternoon we played a very interesting game and participants from the previous training came, gave us support and also advised us about our project. In the night we had a nice, comfy chat with lot of laughing.
1.2.2013
DAY 11
D-Day – graduation day! We were all very excited about our graduation day. In the morning we had final preparations and little after 11h our ceremony started. One by one we presented our projects and ideas how to change the situation of young people in our communities. After all the practice we had, we were very proud of the whole group how well we did at the presentations. After we got our certificates, we had a small cocktail to celebrate successful end of the training. We had a chance to speak to our friends and supporters from Balkan Trust for Democracy who also attended our ceremony. In the afternoon we planned further steps with previous GSL group, how to stay networked and support to each other, how to proceed in the implementation of our projects. We revealed our secret friends and wrote messages to each other. Wrap-up of the training was organized in kafana where we had two reasons to celebrate – successful ending of the training and birthday of our friend Serhat. We are really sorry that the training came to an end, but we are sure we’ll see each other in the future and do many things as leaders for our communities.
