In the beginning of September, the Shokkin team had an opportunity to be part of the Contact Making Event “Connecting People, Organizations, Communities, Europe” in Finland. As one of the organisations from 13 (!) different countries, we could present ourselves and look for new partners for upcoming projects. The meeting was amazingly facilitated by Pavel and Olalla, which made all participants have an extremely positive and #shokkin (of course!) mood during the project.
We started with activities intended to boost team-building, intercultural experiences exchange as well as a brief discussion regarding the opportunities and challenges of the Erasmus+ program in general. Since the main idea of a Contact Making Event is to create partnerships between organisations, we needed to get to know each other better. In order to achieve it, everybody prepared a pitch to present themselves using visual facilitation and providing some detailed information about themselves.
There was a lively discussion about what it really means to be a good partner. We made a debate regarding partnerships’ needs, issues and questions, focusing mostly on: participation fees, communication and what it actually means to have “fewer opportunities”. We had a possibility to exchange different kind of tools that we use in our everyday work connected to various aspects of project management and running the organisation thourh our own tool fair: HR resources, money management, Skype interviews practices, online courses for youth workers, online materials and many more.
Overall, the meeting was really inspiring, informative, full of challenging questions, controversial topics and critical thinking. While having a lot of fun and enjoying our time together, we created real partnerships between organisations, which is the biggest outcome of this meeting! We’ll keep you updated for upcoming projects and ideas which started in Finland!
And also #stayshokkin (as always forever and ever)!
Helena Leszczyńska