After the storytelling by our participants (here in Italian), you can have a look at the official report of the week.

Enjoy!

More Aware – Main activities and learning outcomes report

 It all started in Toscana (Loppiano) in the beggining of April of last year. 25 people from Germany, Italy, Poland and Croatia met for the first time in the beautiful countryside together with a larger group, having the last meeting of their common KA2 project MADIE – http://madie.starkmacher.eu/en/.

Oh, wait! Let me tell you more about what got us here on the first place! Influsion – is a project that aims to involve youth workers and other professionals in discussing economic and social sustainability that aims for the inclusion of marginalized groups through entrepreneurship. Ufff, see? Not an easy task!

The Italian group has expanded, including cultural mediators, newcomers, social workers, therapists, students and workers from different realities, all linked by the context of migration and the theme of sustainability, both economic and environmental. .

In July we travelled from the SPRAR (Protection System for Refugees and Asylum Seekers managed by the social cooperative Stranaidea in partnership with the social cooperative Dalla Stessa Parte) of Ciriè – Torino (Italy) to Ciezsyn (Poland), to participate in the tea festival bringing our experiences, to share them with other people and draw inspiration from the comparison with them.

But not just our ideas and projects were travelling with us. We don’t produce tea, but we thought honey could be a good combination, so we also brought some organic honey produced in the mountains around Ciriè throught the project “BeeHappy”, involving vulnerable people such as newcomers and individuals with mental desease.

We also brought some special sweet grissini, made with organic ingredients into the penitentiary Le Vallette of Torino, through the project “La farina nel sacco” (“The flour in the bag”): every guest of the festival could taste…and love…this refined delicacy!

All our products could also be sold at the market place of the festival, which was an occasion to test our entrepreneurial skills, cooperating with our international project partners.

Close to our market bench, we performed a forum theater on the subject of ethnic discrimination, where many people could take part actively and reflect about stereotypes of our contemporary society, together discussing for finding possible solutions.

We have also been involved in participating in the living library, where some members of our group wanted to tell a chapter of their lives, linked to incidents of discrimination (gender, origin, stutus).

It seems incredible but we also had time to chill, taste great food, dance and have fun together!

We came back home very inspired and we started to organize a living library also in Ciriè, which involved the newcomers, the students and the inhabitants of the valleys around the city. The territory, in fact, has recently started to welcome refugees and asylum seekers and it seems important to implement strategies to encourage the sharing of stories between the inhabitants, old and new, in the area.

We also began to imagine the creation of a twin event with the Cieszyn tea festival and other European festivals focused on sustainability.

Finally, a few months later, we met in Bad Urach, Germany, with the other participants: after the experience in Poland, we all wanted to continue our fruitful collaboration, enriching each of our associations. So we collected ideas, shared advice, started projects …

In Italy we hope to be able to invite you soon for a new influsioned experience.

…we’re working on it…

You can see more information on the Infusion blog here: https://inclusionisfusion.blogspot.fr/

Rita & Stefano

5-03-2018
Sono tornata a casa da un mese. C’è ancora l’odore del giardino della casa dove abitavo nelle mie narici. Ancora mi fa strano uscire di casa e non attraversare il ponte sopra il fiume, non vedere più la Cattedrale e non andare più a lavoro a piedi.
Ho svolto il mio Servizio di Volontariato Europeo in Portogallo, ad Amarante, città a 50km da Porto. La mia vita era piena di cose e di persone. Per un anno intero non ho conosciuto la noia, non sapevo più cos’era. Vivevo in un piccolo e colorato appartamento insieme a due ragazze, una rumena, Timea, l’altra polacca, Patrycja. Con quest’ultima ho diviso la stessa stanza per 8 mesi. La notte mi sveglio ancora di soprassalto convinta di trovarla accanto a me, la cerco nel buio, poi mi ricordo che non c’è. Timea, invece, era fissata con candele, incensi e tisane e da quando sono tornata faccio come faceva lei. Una candela per profumare la stanza e una tisana prima di andare a letto.
La nostra vita ad Amarante si svolgeva più o meno così. Ogni lunedì facevamo i nostri meeting, prima con il responsabile della nostra organizzazione insieme a tutto lo staff dell’Ufficio di Comunicazione e poi un altro solo tra noi volontari. Organizzavamo la nostra settimana, decidendo di volta in volta in quali istituti prestare il nostro servizio. Io prediligevo, quasi sempre, le scuole. Ne avevamo quattro. Ho scoperto lì di avere un talento naturale nel relazionarmi con i più piccoli. Preparavo per loro delle lezioni ogni volta diverse e tanti giochi. Dopo le ore di lavoro tornavo a casa sempre con il sorriso, molto soddisfatta del tempo trascorso con quelli che ho finito per considerare miei bambini. Grazie a loro ho imparato il portoghese, perché era con loro che lo mettevo in pratica più spesso ed era per loro che mi sforzavo di migliorarlo, per poterli capire e per poter comunicare.
Oltre alle scuole svolgevo il mio servizio di volontariato anche in un orfanotrofio, “Terra dos homens”. In quel posto ho scoperto molte cose su me stessa che non sapevo. Lì, in mezzo a quei bambini, tutti speciali e unici, ho aperto una finestra sulla mia anima. Lavorare con loro mi ha letteralmente cambiato la vita, tanto che penso spesso di voler ripetere un’esperienza simile in un altro Paese, magari in Brasile.
Oltre a Timea e a Patrycja, a condividere con me questa fantastica esperienza di volontariato, c’erano altri dieci volontari, tutti di paesi europei differenti. E, poi, di volta in volta, grazie a stage, Youth Exchanges, Work Camp e molti altri progetti internazionali, il nostro gruppo si allargava con nuovi volti, nuove storie e nuovi modi di comunicare, per poi ritornare al nucleo di partenza ogni volta che il progetto finiva e i ragazzi che avevamo ospitato nella nostra struttura andavano via. Con tutti questi ragazzi ho provato la sensazione bellissima di fare il giro del mondo stando seduta comodamente fuori al nostro patio, chiacchierando e cantando tutti insieme; ma è con i miei compagni volontari che ho provato davvero l’abbraccio di una famiglia. Insieme, non solo abbiamo condiviso il lavoro, i viaggi, la stanchezza e la nostalgia di casa, ma l’intimità propria solo di persone che dividono tutto insieme e non sanno più immaginarsi una vita gli uni senza gli altri.
Prima di partire avevo parlato con qualche ragazzo che come me aveva fatto la stessa esperienza di volontariato europeo. Ricordo che avevo chiesto come era stato per loro tornare a casa, come si erano sentiti. C’era un sentimento comune in questi racconti: mi sono sentito perso, nessuno poteva capirmi, non facevo altro che pensare al prossimo viaggio.
Posso dire che è tutto vero.

Assunta Lutricuso

From 4th till 10th  of February, in Almagro, Spain, the second part of the project “Selective Prevention” took place. The training course was nothing like the usual courses held. The reason why the project had a second part, is because the first part had a success and made an impact on the participants.

The topic is really rare and not many organizations focus on this problem, but the knowledge about social education methods is needed.So the project started with some main information about their local project, which is called EMPU-G. They are working in the region of Castilla la mancha, and they have youth centers in different towns of the region, such as Tomelloso, Miguelturra, La Solana, Socuellamos, and Manzanares. The first 4 towns we visited during the project, the last one was visited during the first part. The aim of EMPU-G is to prevent the drug consumption and to help the youth with fewer opportunities.  Inside of their project, they reached more than 500 people, and they made a big impact and changes in their lives.

While visiting the centers of EMPU-G, we had the chance to see how they actually work. In every center each participant country had to organize an activity, which would show a part of the culture. Also the kids from the centers prepared activities for us participants, so the whole project was to share our experience and knowledge, and also to share some love, happiness and smiles. Spending time in their centers, showed us a different way of working with youth, and made participants to be more interested in the topic.

During our visit, in Spain started the Carnival and we had the chance to see a small part of it. The last dinner of the project was in La Solana, where we had a Carnival costume evening. The days were full of intercultural learning, especially getting to know the Spanish culture. While visiting the towns in the region, we discovered many beautiful places; also we had tours to the oldest theatre in Europe in Almagro, Wine factory in Tomelloso, Carnival museum and Tower Gorda in Miguelturra, The Mills in Campo de Criptana.

At the end is always hard to leave a project, which was really enjoyable, and during which were created many great friendships.