“I want to share my experience and impressions about the international training course “The Starship Project” , which took place in an amazing place, with amazing organizers, delicious food and unique people. Separate love for the location of the project – it was a place with an inspiring and energizing view of the ocean and the surrounding area of O Grove.
For a whole week we immersed ourselves in the theory of conducting and organizing international projects in order to become more competent and knowledgeable. We also had the opportunity to try ourselves in the role of facilitators in practice and organize our session for others. I think that it was the most challenging moment of the project.
What I really liked was the safe atmosphere for analyzing and expressing my feelings and emotions. I think this is something that made that project so special. And of course, this is a great merit of the organizers of the project. Despite the large amount of very important information that required time to settle down, at the end of each session everyone had the opportunity to discuss their feelings. That supported the process a lot.
Also, according to my feeling, the time of sessions and rest was perfectly distributed. We were deeply immersed in the topic at the session itself, but then the whole evening we had the opportunity to reflect, relax in the company or one by one.
As for the content of the project, everything was insanely balanced for me, despite the fact that this is a very extensive topic in which you need to know a lot of theory. But this theory was presented through different methods, which made the whole process interesting and varied.
I personally learned so much necessary, new and useful information that I can use every day in my work and not only.
There were a lot of insights that turned my understanding of my work upside down – I still analyze them in my head. No offense to the academic education at the university, but in 7 days I learned more about the methodology and techniques than in 3 years at the university.
The coolest thing is that at the end of the project we were able to create our own groups, in which we can later make our project. We are still in touch and I am sure that the ideas will be implemented and the project will be сarried out soon. It’s the best feeling to find like-minded people and go into fears together!
Thank you for that opportunity! I hope that we will meet one more time, but already in our very own project!”
Alina Smirnova
“This is a small personal review about the recent training course that happened in Galicia, Spain. My name is Emilia and I’ve been lucky enough to be a participant of the training course in the lovely town of O Grove, next to the famous mussel farms and the beautiful Atlantic Ocean.
I’ve been on a few youth exchanges in the past, mostly during my high school years, but this particular project was my first Erasmus+ training course. I didn’t have any certain expectations, since I haven’t experienced something like a training course before. At that time I was aware of the typical Erasmus+ youth exchange structure, therefore, I so to say ‘painted myself a picture’ of what this could possibly be about.
Before registering on this project I also talked with some of my friends, who had already been on international youth exchanges. Everyone encouraged me to participate – not only friends, but also the team of Shokkin Group Estonia. I’m super grateful to the members of Shokkin Group that they navigated me into this project. Without them, I would have probably missed this opportunity.
I’ll briefly talk about my impressions of this project. It’s truly difficult to put my emotions into words without sounding too dramatic, but this project was definitely one of the best things in my life. Why? Well, for me personally, it was a very big learning experience with like-minded people surrounding me.
Honestly, I don’t remember the last time that I learned this much valuable information and skills in such a short period of time. In addition, the newly obtained knowledge will not just disappear soon, because I can actually implement it in my professional field – street art workshops for youngsters.
Other things that I will remember from this project are the warm and positive spirit of the participants and project coordinators, the hospitality of the venue, the beautiful nature and the delicious food.
In conclusion, the training course was a big success for me, both emotionally and learning-wise. It was a new challenging experience, but the end result was worth it. Would I recommend this to anyone else working in the youth field? Absolutely.“
Emilia Sabirova
The project was implemented by Ticket2Europe with the support of SGI network funded by Spanish National Agency Injuve under the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission.