On June 30, 2019, a two-day advanced planning visit for the youth exchange 'Get back to yOur roots' ended. The exchange itself was planned for September 7-15 in the Croatian town of Ludbreg. HEureka Generator was represented by: Ms Aneta Karczmarek - leader of the Polish group and teacher of English at the C.K. Norwid Secondary School from Krasnystaw, together with a student of this school - Martyna Spyra.

During the meeting of leaders and representatives of youth from Croatia, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece all aspects of the forthcoming exchange were discussed. Thanks to this visit, the leaders were able to prepare their groups for full, active participation in the September youth exchange.

What was the youth exchange prepared by Razvojna Udruga Ludbreg about? Its main topic was to prevent social exclusion by activating the local community, young people, in particular, to seek interesting initiatives in their communities. During specially designed workshops, participants had the opportunity to present what the problem of exclusion in their communities looks like and how it can be remedied.

Trip to Croatia lasted almost a full day. Already during it, we received the first photo from our group.

At the very beginning of the exchange, 7-person groups from each country started integration and agreed how they could strengthen the visibility of all joint activities. Small international teams responsible for placing information about the project on FB Fan Pages of partner organizations were established. The group also agreed on the rules that everyone had to follow so that the meeting would take place in a friendly, educational atmosphere.

There was also a city game, during which the participants checked how they work in international groups and had the opportunity to establish numerous interactions with the community of the town of Ludbreg.

Finally, workshops related to the main topic of the exchange began. At the beginning the group discussed the definition of social exclusion to make sure that the words were understood by all in a similar way. After that, it was possible to conduct a discussion on a deeper level.

The community event was an important part of the exchange. In order for the inhabitants of Ludbreg to take part, they had to be informed about it. Leaflets prepared by the group proved to be very helpful.

Project participants also met with young people from the local school. Thanks to this, in the near future more young people will dare to take part in a similar youth exchange.

Time to start the community event ;-)

And finally, there were evaluation workshops summarizing the whole meeting and the Youthpass certificates ceremony. Youthpass is a document which describes what each participant of the exchange learned. Then there was a farewell party and it was time to go home with a lot of new experiences in a pocket.

You can see the video about the youth exchange here: