In 2021 HEureka Generator was a partner of the Erasmus+ project entitled 'H.E.A.L.TH. - Health Enriches And Lightens THinking', organized by Hungarian organization Foundation for the Youth of Balatonalmádi. The topic of the project was mental and physical health of young people.

One month before the youth exchange which was planned to begin in the second half of November, representatives of five partner organizations came to Hungary for the preparatory visit to the youth exchange. We discussed the issues related to logistics and safety during the project as well as the activities we would like to conduct. We could later pass that knowledge to the participants from our national groups.

In the morning of November 24 we started our journey to Hungary. Miss Heureka and Mr. Generator – our organization’s mascots were traveling with us. The journey took us 12 hours but we were happy and excited to meet everyone.

Next day was full of integration and team building activities. We could get to know each other better and start to cooperate. We also had a session during which we were talking about our expectations, fears and contributions related to this youth exchange. We wrote them on colorful sticky notes and pasted on the big paper so that everyone could see them.

We also took a walk to the lake Balaton nearby. We created pairs in which we were talking about certain topics so that we got opportunity to get to know each other better.

In the afternoon we started the discussions related to the main topic of our youth exchange which is mental and physical health. Interesting in this activity was that we could create small groups for the discussions by ourselves – writing the words we associate 'helath' with and grouping them according to the specific topics. Later we were presenting the results of our discussions.

Here you can watch the video about integration day:

On Friday we continued activities connected with the topic of health. We were divided in five groups and had to fulfill the tasks that were waiting for us in different parts of the building. The tasks demanded a lot of creativity because we were drawing, writing poems, singing or acting.

After this very exciting activity we had some time for relax and meditation. Everyone got the paper on which they could write or draw anything that came to their mind.

In the evening we had the first cultural night during which Italian and Hungarian participants presented traditions and food from their countries. We also had opportunity to compete in the quizzes about Italy and Hungary. It was a lot of fun.

During the weekend we were trying to share our thoughts about 'Hofstede's cultural dimensions'. We were working in national groups and we had to think about whether our society is more individualistic or collective, long-term or short-term oriented, masculine or feminine etc. Later we presented the results and we could see some very interesting differences between our countries.

That wasn’t the only task connected with this topic. After the presentations we were divided into international teams and we were to prepare the role play that would show the differences inside each dimension. Even though that topic was a bit more serious we made the role plays in fun way which helped us to understand the whole thing much easier.

One of the sessions we had during those days was about Erasmus+ program. We could ask questions and share our experiences.

We also had another four presentations about our countries' cultures and traditions. This time it was Georgians, Poles, Lithuanians and Danes who made the presentations and quizes.

New week started with the spectrum debate. We were again divided into smaller groups and discussed the thesis. One of topics was 'nationality radically defines our way of thinking'. Other groups discussed different topics connected with health, culture, society etc. After we gathered arguments for and against the thesis the whole group met again.

The person who was leading the activity said the thesis and then each one of us could choose where we would stand according to how much we agree with the sentence. There were papers on the floor with percentage 0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100%. Opinions were very divided so discussions took us long time and were very interesting.

In the afternoon we tok a train to Balatonfüred which is another city at the lake Balaton. We played the city game there and we were happy that we can discover another part of Hungary.

On Tuesday we got up earlier to start the adventure in the city of Veszprém. The weather wasn’t very kind to us but we had a lot of fun during the city rally. We needed to find five places in the city center, having only the map and the photos of them. In those places there were hidden tasks that our groups had to fulfil. We were again singing, writing poems, recording videos, so it was very creative and fun.

After the city rally we had free time in the city. It is very beautiful place and we got to know that Veszprém was chosen to become the European Cultural Capital in 2023.

The last days of the youth exchange were not less interesting that the others. We again had the interactive activity. We were talking about the Youthpass certificate that we will get at the end of the youth exchange. Important thing connected with it are 8 key competences that we developed during our participation in the project. We made a role play presenting each competence. We became really good actors!

We didn’t forget about making our project visible so we were creating videos, interviews, articles about it and then we planned the strategy how to reach the biggest number of people that could see what we have done here so that they become interested in taking part in such projects in the future. You can check one of the videos here:

In the end we summed up the project, evaluated the whole 10 days and received Youthpass certificates. It was really great adventure for everyone.

Youth Exchange in Balatonalmádi was very interesting experience for me. I have met many people, with different and inspiring points of view. Also, it was good opporutnity to try some traditional Hungarian dishes - for example I was surprised by the fact that Hungarian tomato soup is very sweet (Polish one is rather salty and sour). Balaton, huge and beautiful lake in Hungary, was looking like great, blue sea. I have learned few new words in Hungarian and developed my language skills in English.

We participated in many interesting workshops and had the opportunity to conduct our own. The poetry one was the most memorable for me - we shared our interpretations of poems, but also we were able to see that poetry has no language barriers, it was possible to understand emotions of a writer even without knowing what he or she is speaking (we were reading loud original poems, and after that making translation). I hope we will keep in touch with other participants and meet each other on next exchange. - Bogusia, Polish group