First of all, we want to say a big “Thank you” for the opportunity to be a part of the educational and deeply inspiring seminar “Let it go” which was held in Cava de’ Tirreni situated in the region of Campania, Italy. We have to put an emphasis on the comforting way that spontaneously, through self-observation games and methods we had the opportunity to become more self-aware for managing our emotions so that they serve us in our professional roles and also in our everyday life instead of sabotaging us.
The 7 day program included non-formal education with interactive and creative approach towards learning through group work, role-playing, discussions, presentations, games, outdoor activities, yoga, meditation etc. The 1st day focused on getting to know each of the participants on a personal level through team building activities and “Guess my passion” method. Also, the educators presented the program of the seminar and we elaborated on our expectations and contributions. The 2nd day was dedicated to presenting the participants on a professional level through “NGO Fair” and this enabled us to share our organizational background and to find common interests and topics to work on. The morning was reserved for a yoga session and understanding and response to stress. The 3rd day started with meditation and handling burn out, where we learned how to become DRAGON, and to not burn in the PHOENIX Flame. Phoenix stands for all of us that end up caught in the net of our work or personal life obstacles and we are unable to cope with the work life challenges, we feel emptiness within, we zone out, we are neglecting our needs and we have changes in our behavior. We learned how the stress manifests on a personal, emotional, behavioural and cognitive level. The DRAGON Method: (D)eload Priorities; (R)econfigure Focus; (A)ssemble Boundaries; (G)ain Mastery Of Stress; (O)vercome Overachievement; (N)urture Resilience. The rest of the day was focused on bilateral meetings between the participants for presenting current interests for project ideas and finding common ground. In the evening we enjoyed our intercultural evening. The 4th day we experienced a technique for managing stress, drawing, which we all found really inspirational. Also, we worked on sharing funding opportunities and ways for financing our ideas, through donators and entrepreneurship ideas, especially social entrepreneurship. The 5th day we worked on “16 associations” technique which helped us find the core of our problem, what stops us from resolving a problem. The rest of the day was for project management and we started working on common project ideas within groups. The 6th day we enjoyed in a relaxing technique, free writing and then we went on working on common project ideas within groups. The 7th day was reserved for presentation of our common projects and we are happy that our ideas will be applied for the Erasmus+ program!
Overall, we are grateful that as participants we met with likeminded people from different countries and shared our knowledge and experience and we had the chance to connect with each other in order to create new partnerships for setting up future projects.
We appreciate that everyone was friendly, they were willing to help the ones that had less experience with planning and writing project applications, implementation and evaluation of local and international projects, but also they were ready to listen for new ideas, which resulted in making great projects that everyone of us will run back in our local communities.
Also we explored the beautiful Amalfi Coast and made a promise that we will come back again. The Italian people are extremely open, warm-hearted and welcoming.
Looking forward for new projects that will change our world for better!
