On the way to acceptance

Hello everyone! First of all, thank you for clicking the link to the blog and giving us a chance to surprise you with our experiences. I would like to use this space to explain you the goals that ‘’Actors of Change 2.0’’ (I know the 2.0 it’s swagy) have for this project. Some of you might see us in your class and wonder why we are there, maybe because of the language misunderstandings or maybe because the time we have is short and we have too many things to say.

So, what do we want? Basically, we aim for tolerance, acceptance and social inclusion. We had this magnificent opportunity of coming to Arad to perform these workshops in the schools… which really doesn’t mean that in our home countries there isn’t discrimination between youngsters. Just a mix of the destiny and the European Union has brought us here.

Through our workshops, we try to make you realize and voice your opinion about bullying and some of the different ‘’isms’’. The suffix ‘’ism’’ is used to indicate a ‘’political, religious movement, beliefs or attitudes of a grand narrative’’. To summarize, the isms are different forms of discrimination that we can observe in today’s society. The usual problem is that we don’t take time in our life to think about other people or how we can help them. It is easy to avoid a topic that you find weird or different. Many times, we turn our backs on others without sensing it. So, step by step, because the world wasn’t built in one day, we need to open our eyes. Let’s face it, we are young, hopefully full of life and energy to make our community a better place. If you think that you are safe because you haven’t been bullied and your life is perfectly normal… then it is a favorable time to help others and join their fight for rights. The best part is that you can do all of this without failing to your own beliefs. Because we enrich the world with culture, ethnicities, gender identity, family backgrounds, generational time…and this makes us unique individuals. But we cannot live in a bubble, therefore we must educate ourselves. For example, I am an occidental woman seeking equality between women and men. Nevertheless, I can’t forget about racialized woman who still have less rights than me in the society. Because the equality must be for all human beings, without excluding anyone.

Our project wants to awaken in you the ability to empathize with people. We are not trying to say that what you are is wrong, just showing that there is much more beyond that. You might make some people scared by perpetrating their discrimination in society and not realize it. You might think that you are just a teenager, that no one cares about what you think anyways. Except that we really do. Because a community is not only built by old people. We are the younger generations that are able to change the unfair things happening in the world today. Do you want to be a part of that?

- Sofi

Perception on homophobia and LGBTQ+ rights

These two months working as a volunteer in Romania, talking about bullying and discrimination with the students in the schools, it has caught my attention especially their reaction when we talk about homophobia and LGBTQ+ comunity, so I’ve decided to dedicate my first post in this blog to talk about this topic.

During the development of our workshops me and my collegues have noticed that many of our students don't feel confortable talking about homosexuality and have even shown some attitudes of intolerance towards the LGBTQ+ community. These attitudes have appeared mainly during our third workshop when we do an activity called Life cards. During this activity we give the student different ‘characters’ such as gay, lesbian, transgender, gypsy, jewish, muslim, refugee or blind among others, and they have to imagine that they are those people for a day and how their life would change. The main aim of this activity is to help understand diversity and to develope empathy by putting ourselves inthe place of others. Though most of the people in the classes perform this activity very well we have noticed that they have more trouble in putting themselves in the paper of lesbian, gay or transgender than in any of the others ‘characters’, even refusing to answer the questions about them out loud. 

But what impressed me the most was seeing in the questionaries we give them on the first workshop that almost all of them would feel unconfortble having a friend that is homosexual or transgender.

So homophobia can be described as “negative attitudes and feelings towards people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender”, and generates fear and prejudice towards these collectives that can manifest in legal restrictions, institutional discrimination, bullying or even violence againts them. 

In my own experience I think romanian society is still quite conservative in regard to the rights of gay, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people, and though the country has carried out many legal changes in the last tweenty years by descriminalising homosexuality and enforcing laws against homophobic hate crimes I think there’s still a lot to do in this field.

We as society and as individuals cannot forget that “every person regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression are entitled to their rights. LGBTQ+ rights are not special rights, but the same human rights that should be afforded to all individuals”, and I’m glad that me and my colleges are able to talk about this topic and hopefully also transmit this message to the youngsters.

- Lucía

Learning how to teach

During this EVS experience, my first challenge has been the fear of teaching, especially to the older kids.

In fact, after only one month of workshop there're some facts that I already notice and, also, the evaluation forms that the kids had to fill can confirm my theories.

But, before getting to that part, it would be better to describe the different activities that we use in the workshop, in order to give a more complete picture of the situation.

Well, let's start saying that of course EVS consists in a non-formal method of education, so that means that we don't use the old school method of the frontal lesson with the kids. Therefore, the activities and the methods that we use are designed to let the kids think about the situation and fid their own solution, without judging them in any case.

That's why we and, basically, most of the EVS projects are based on workshops, that is by definition a “mental space”, a “forma mentis”, in order to interact with reality to comprehend it and/or change it.

That's why the workshop can be used basically for every kind of subject, from the informatics 'til the specific ones, for example in chemistry, biology, etc.

The reason why this teaching is very popular is because with it, basically, the student masters is own learning, because through the actions, he gets to the result on his own.

Regarding to our teaching strategies, we use a mix of them, because every module is focused on a specific one. In particular, we use:

• the Brainstorming, that gives total freedom to the student, giving him the chance to express himself in a total safe space, without the risk of being judged;
• the Role playing, where the students actually play a specific role;
• the Case study, that means giving to the students a situation that could be real or not, in order for them to find a solution or just thinking about it.

1.

2.

1. Example of role play with the VIth grade

2.Example of role play with the Xth grade

So, the first thing that we can notice from these two pictures is how the older kids tend to be more shy in the interactive activities, while the younger ones enjoy them more.

This has been reported also in the evaluation forms; for example, many forms from the VIIth grade recomend to “use more role play” or just in general “to be less serious”. Instead, the forms from the Xth grade, say that the workshops were “ok, but sometimes boring”, in relation in particularly to the role play activity that they found “childish”.

Another difference that we can observe related to the age is their level on english and how it effects their participation to the classes: many people would say that probably the english level is better for the older one, so these workshops work better with them. Well, atualy is the other way aroud: the younger kids, even though don't speak english very well, participate more to the workshop. Thaks to their curiosity, they use every instrument available to communicate their opinions, like asking to the teacher to translate for us or ask one of their classmates to do it.

This doesn't happen with the older ones: the ones that don't speak english very well don't participate that much and I think that it's due to the peers pressure, meaning that they're afraid to make mistakes in another language in front of their classmates.

In conclusion, I can say that luckly we are getting good outcomes from all the kids: most of them seem to enjoy the activities and are really interested in the topic.

Of course, our work needs some adjustments in order to get everyone's attention, disregarding the age, and with time we'll get there.

-Giada

EVS first experiences

PART 1

But what is EVS? What exactly are you doing in that project? Two questions I've been asked the most in this period. EVS is an acronym for European Voluntary Service. It's a program created by the EU. Its actual goal is to help young people discover other countries and experience the European ideals through helping , by many kinds of projects , the community. That explains it pretty much..

However, by that two-sentenced and pretty correct summed up definition, you still can't express what you actually get out of EVS. My project's main subject is anti-bullying and anti-discrimination. Going to schools and doing some interactive activities with children is what I and my team do in order to pass our message. Through this I saw three things.

One is the personal development, to overcome any struggles you might have. You are set free to be creative, you learn how to work in a team and you gain confidence as you have to speak to an audience, people that are interested into what you have to say. Second, the realization. The realization, that comes up when you interfere with the students , that it actually exists. The situation we are trying to solve with these activities, trying to be our best selves in order to deal with it. Well, it was obvious that the problem existed, that's why the project got created in the first place, but realizing it and seeing it with your own eyes is something different. And the third, that there are bright minds. In these classrooms there are bright and sensitive young people who are aware of the problem and by their attitude towards it they can actually help solving it and continue that way our attempt, be in a larger scale part of our project's group.

I've been in Arad of Romania with the EVS for almost three months already and what I described is only one part of my experiences here so far. The ones regarding the project itself. There are more to tell though.

-Michael

My first impressions of Romania

Hello! 

In this post I want to talk about my experience with living in Romania so far and my first impressions. Before I went here, I did not know what to expect, because I had never been to the east part of Europe. When I arrived here, the whole city was white because of the snow. That was already special for me, because I am not used to a lot of snow. Then I met the people. In general Romanian people are very nice. Sometimes they don’t speak English very well, especially the older people, but at the end we understand each other. Something else that I had to get used to here, is the fact that everything takes a longer time. When you make an appointment with someone, it can take some time to plan it and it is less punctual. It is not something bad, because it is just part of the lifestyle and slowly you get used to that. Then also, at some point, I discovered that Romania has really beautiful nature. When I went out of the city and we were driving through the mountains, I got so happy because it was beautiful. Another thing I have noticed about Romania is that here you can see a lot of things from other countries. When you walk down the street, you will see a lot of Italian restaurants, shops with Turkish delicacies and German supermarkets. I don’t know if it was always like this, but Romanian people seem to like other cultures a lot. Also, coming back to the weather, around this time it almost never rains in Arad and when it does, it is just a little bit. I don’t know if it is like this in all of Romania, but here it is really something that surprised me. Someone told me that from the end of April it can already be around 30 degrees Celsius, so the summers here must be really warm.  I am excited.

- Coco