“Honestly, I was not expecting this project to be THAT good! I knew it would be awesome, but it was more than awesome. Only one week, but it felt like a small-tiny-tiny chapter of your life. It is like you went out to a party, had fun and the next day you try to explain people who missed it how fun it was. It never works.
What happened at the party, stays at the party- because it is too hard to copy and share “the power of the moment” – all little jokes we had during the whole week. Feeling of “being a kid again” while climbing the nearest mountain with other participants in the forest; breathtaking views of Finland’s nature that opens from the top of the mountain; feeling yourself a happy kid again while running to the kitchen during coffee break to get those amazing fresh handmade pastries; all those fun moments that happened while playing Mafia in the lobby at night with other participants; feeling your brain refreshed after all those incredibly interesting sessions; feeling proud of yourself and your team for creating a board game about such an important topic; feeling happy when hearing people say that they will use this game with their students back home…
It is hard to share these feelings with people who were not there, but what we can share for sure is a knowledge that we got. I want to say that the sessions we had were next level! Trainers provided us with a high quality training, both theoretical and practical. I got a great example of how sessions should look like: interesting, informative, motivational, supportive by the trainers, and I feel motivated to improve my way of teaching kids and to be a better teacher!
Thank you! I would recommend to everyone to try yourself at least once in international projects! I am sure you will not regret it!”
Maria Bukhalova
Shokkin member and participant at “Board Builders”
“My way to ‘Board Builders’ was a bit chaotic, not mentioning missing my ferry at the last moment and a person with the same name as me taking my place in the ride to the project venue… but I am glad that I managed to make my way to this magnificent week ever!
The topic of the project was educational board game design, about how to develop the concept of a new game and test it with several methods to see if it will be good and if the game reached its purpose or not. Our venue near Turku was an amazing place, which gave us more energy and time to develop our ideas and communicate better with one another.
I learnt how to apply my experience in environmental education for youth and combine it with an the gaming concept to produce an educational game for kids to teach them about recycling and environmental awareness. The mentoring activities and the ways that our trainers used were good, using different ways from peer to peer learning, workshops, testing and giving feedback all the time about our game.
The group of participants that we had was also amazing, and each one of them is a plus in my life now, I liked the idea that all of us came from different backgrounds and different fields (engineering, business, education…). I also really liked the time that we spend together playing different games, talking about different topics and the most important thing: going with the small boat to the sea!
I would like to have this experience again and I hope with the same people but I really wish to be at least 10 days or even more, everything in the project was perfect! Thanks Shokkin!”
Omar Selim
Shokkin member and participant at “Board Builders”