In the beginning of April, 32 youngsters from 11 countries gathered in Sfintu Gheorghe, Romania to discuss on initiating entrepreneurship to preserve and use the potential of Roma culture, traditions and nature in rural areas through youth work activities.
Like in the other training courses, the activities started with introduction games and team building activities which laid the foundations for a beautiful team and great friendships among the participants and later on also built partnerships between organizations.
The days were full of discussions and presentations about Roma situation in every country, their traditions, culture and education. Moreover, the participants discussed about unemployment problems in their countries, trying to find new ways of development of creativity and initiative in rural areas, they had a chance to hear and share their experiences of different Erasmus+ projects.
Schedule was intense, but participants showed more and more motivation and interest every day, when finally, in the end, they got a chance to show what they know and what they’ve learned in a workshop for kids in a school of a small village Valea Crisului.
However, the most memorable experience for most of the participants was a visit to two Roma camps, and, of course, a participation in an International Roma Day parade with a ride in a horse carriages around the town.
Besides, the main topic of the training course, the participants got a chance to discover the local area and history by playing the City game, having dinners out and painting Easter eggs in a traditional way.
Tasting different food and learning traditional dances, hearing people greeting each other in several different language every morning, singing songs after being late, feeling no communication barrier, even if there was no common language, laughing till it hurts- these are the great memories that everyone brought back and hopefully, will share with the others to encourage people to travel and discover Europe.
All in all, in my opinion, this training course could be an example how the projects should be done.
